


Mated with Moonshine

by ALWrites



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alpha Park Chanyeol, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, M/M, Minor Violence, Omega Byun Baekhyun, Self-Lubrication, Sexual Content, animal hunting, but mpreg can be ignored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-01-26 18:14:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12563280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALWrites/pseuds/ALWrites
Summary: The ancestors choose an omega their mate. Chanyeol does all he can to persuade them he is worthy of the moonlight. Worthy of Byun Baekhyun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this wolf au, I have created my own concept and set of rules. This fic will not be the same as other wolfy fics you might have read. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> There are still alphas and omegas and mated pairs with bonds though! And they do turn into wolves! There are no betas in this au.
> 
> Warnings/tags will be updated as I go along. If you read anything that you think should be a warning, please let me know so I can add it quickly. 
> 
> For anyone interested, I did do research for this fic, as I do with all my fics. I looked up a lot of information on wolves and their behaviour, and then on the climate/biome (idk the right word for that) they live in too. I also now know how to make candles from scratch and clothes out of animal skin, so everything that you read in regards to these subjects should be accurate. I did make a mistake with what colours wolves can see though so .. yeah please ignore that xD
> 
> I wrote this story because I wanted to write something calm and simple, so please don't expect too much!
> 
> You can also read this story on AFF: asianfanfics.com/story/view/1285310
> 
>  

 

 

[(Link to AFF version)](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1285310/mated-with-moonshine-exo-baekyeol-chanbaek-wolfau)

 

 

A song.

A sweet, melodious voice floated throughout the village like the calling of an angel. It spoke of the moon. The sun. Light and life. It dreamed of the future, the stars encrusted in the eyes of a newborn. Love, health, safety and prosperity all wrapped up in a gift, tied with a ribbon of promise.

Seohyun’s first child was born. A baby girl with a rich brown coat, just like her father. This was the first day mother and daughter would transition side by side into their human forms. For the mother, it was the first time since going into labour. For the daughter, the first time ever. Chanyeol, a lone wolf stood on the outskirts of the village, buried deep within the mountainous forest, heard the babe’s cry on the wind, then truly listened to the silvery voice which followed.

It was a song.

Sung by an omega that Chanyeol never really paid much attention to before. A young man with hair as black as the night and skin as pale as the moon. The way his mouth formed around the notes and the words had Chanyeol enraptured in the very essence of his soul, tangled in the pulsing veins of his being. An omega so light yet so broad. An omega so soft, and yet so powerful.

All it took was one song for Chanyeol to decide that he wanted to belong to him. He wanted to belong to the omega who mesmerised all, who cherished the pack children and smiled with the light of the sun. He wanted to belong to the omega who, unfortunately, was set to belong to someone else.

 

 

The pine forest gives way to an enclosed village, the paws of a wolf padding against the dry ground in beats of four. Just like always, the pack territories and borders are safe and intact, no intruders or rogue wolves loitering where they ought not to be. As one of the fastest runners amongst the alphas, Chanyeol rises in the dark before dawn every day to run the morning patrol, treading a route that takes him up the eastern bank of the river and down through the forest to the edge of a cliff, where a waterfall tumbles into a lake a hundred feet below.

The late spring offers him glorious rays of sunshine, the air fresh and crisp against Chanyeol’s face as he slows to a relaxed jog. With his duties done for the day, Chanyeol is free to do as he pleases until dawn tomorrow morning. He lives alone in the village, no family sharing the bare spaces of his circular hut crafted from the wood of the trees around him and the earth he stands on. Often, he finds himself sitting around with nothing to do. Sometimes he lounges about in the slow-moving river behind his house; other times he goes hunting for the sake of obtaining animal skins and their fur rather than their meat; and on the rare occasion that he feels up to talking, he will visit his only friend, Yoona, in the village centre where she spends the day with the other omegas.

Their pack works in harmony with one another, all with a set job to do. The alphas mainly run patrols and hunt for food, the protecting, while the omegas cook and clean and look after the children. Everyone knows, though, that the omegas are the strongest in the pack. Without them, an alpha would mean nothing. Without them, an alpha would either die or would never have been born.

Chanyeol’s wolven eyes absentmindedly glances over to the village centre on his way past, spying out Yoona sat by Seohyun who dotes on her daughter. Yoona has a fair-sized wooden board spread across her knee with the pelt of a squirrel pinned down on it, the piece of sharp slate in her hand used for scraping away the flesh before she tans it. That is what the omegas do: they make clothes for their alphas, feed their alphas, raise their alpha’s line. They are as valuable as the sacred moonstone that chooses them their mates.

A lone figure walks into view, an arrival which finds Chanyeol’s heart skipping a beat and his legs starting to dawdle. Baekhyun has a wicker basket full of laundry hooked on the bend of his arm, turning walking into an art as he heads in the direction of the river with his washboard in hand. Ever since Chanyeol laid eyes on him, _truly_ laid eyes on him, there became a longing in his chest. The omega simply enraptures him, took Chanyeol’s very soul and sat it in the palm of his hand.

Baekhyun came of age last week, turning eighteen years old amidst a wild party that Chanyeol had sat on the outskirts of until Yoona pulled him in for a dance. He wanted to wish Baekhyun a happy birthday himself, but alphas cannot talk to unmated omegas, so he had to ask Yoona to do it for him. His heart was thumping manically when he saw the exchange, and clenched tight when Baekhyun searched the crowd just for him to deliver a smile.

Baekhyun smiles at him now, having caught his eye in passing. He wears modest deerskin clothes – a vest and some shorts – and a pair of laced shoes, crafted from layers and layers of different hides that are bunched together around his toes and his heels. 

That will be all the omega will ever do to him, though – smile.

Chanyeol nods the head of his wolf to show Baekhyun that he has seen, unable to smile when on four legs, and he coincidentally hears the voice of Oh Sehun from across the square. He’s joking with a few alphas about something, most likely an inappropriate topic that degrades one of the members of the pack. Chanyeol can remember the grandmother who had taken him in as a pup and tried to make them get along with each other. He also remembers Oh Sehun being arrogant and disrespectful, and even kicking him into the dirt on one occasion. He is the son of the Head Alpha, entitled and rude, and thinks the pack – if not the whole world – owes him everything.

It is no secret that the Head Alpha and Baekhyun’s mother have decided their children will become mates. Chanyeol sees evidence of their courting everywhere he looks: in the way Baekhyun has to trek to the river every day and back to wash clothes; in the way that Baekhyun serves Sehun his meals at the pack suppers before he even serves himself; in the way that Chanyeol often hears Baekhyun’s mother scolding him for being so incompetent when his mating is just around the corner. There is always this pressure on omegas to be perfect, never the alphas.

Although the final choice of who Baekhyun’s mate will be lies with their ancestors, who communicate with them through the moonstone in the centre of the pack village. Chanyeol already knows that the longing in his chest will most likely remain there for the rest of his days. It is just one of those things, he supposes. As soon as he comes to understand what he wants, there is someone else butting in and taking it away from him before he’s even had a chance. He has always struggled with getting attached to things, but as soon as he saw Baekhyun, his heart latched onto him like a limpet to a rock and refused to let go. Most likely, his heart will persist there no matter the weather. No matter how hard Sehun tries to pry him off.

As he starts to make his way home, he observes the moonstone sat high on the top of a cut tree trunk and wonders what it would be like for the moonlight to shine upon him. For the ancestors to choose him and not Oh Sehun. It would be glorious, no doubt. The best day of his life. Yet it will only ever exist as a dream or a fantasy. The ancestors would never pick him. Not when Oh Sehun is his competition.

Back in the shelter of his hut, Chanyeol prepares to transition. While planting his front paws firmly on the ground and swinging his hips back and out, he thinks back to the first time he can remember changing into his wolf. Of course, he was born as his wolf, as omegas do not give birth in human form, but when he was about ten months old he left his wolf behind and let his other face be known. It wasn’t until five years later that he was coached through the transition for the first time by the pack grandmother. He remembers white hot lashings of pain and the feeling of his skin stretching thinly around his transforming bones. He remembers screaming, above all else. To put it bluntly, it hurt like a bitch.

Now, Chanyeol hardly feels a thing. It gets easier with practise, time, repetition, as do most things, and with nothing better to do for most of his childhood, he managed to perfect his transitioning by the age of eight, three years before the average pup would.

He focuses his mind on _human, human, human,_ and starts to feel the relaxing popping of his bones, the sound and sensation akin to cracking one’s knuckles. His bones come loose next, delivering him a feeling of weightlessness that has him releasing his last deep breath through a snout. He closes his eyes when his skull starts to snap, bones softening and shrinking to fit the size of a human head. There’s a gentle hissing as his thick black coat sinks into his skin in hiding, and soon enough Chanyeol can feel his fingertips pressing against the ground instead of his paws, his now opposable thumbs twitching as he remembers what it’s like to be in his human form. His tail slithers over his spine, and his back legs come out bent at the knee just as his claws disappear under his finger and toe nails. When he next opens his eyes, he is met with colour.

For a while, he remains on his hands and knees just breathing, scrunching his fists up in the dirt floor of his hut to the thought of Oh Sehun taking Baekhyun away from him. It shouldn’t irk him so much. It shouldn’t make him want to rebel against the pack and its rules. But it does, and it worries him. The Head Alpha may exile him for any poor decisions he makes while his judgement is clouded, and Chanyeol doesn’t want to risk being out on his own for a second time; there’s no guarantee that a wolf will be so kind as to take him in again. The last time he was barely ten days old, harmless. Now, though, it’s a different story.

With the image of the Head Alpha in his mind, Chanyeol remembers that he still has to go and deliver his report. All he is required to do is confirm that the territories are clear and that he has found no traces of wolves who are not of the pack; considering that there are no imminent threats to their people, Chanyeol opts to take his time.

He slides into a bearskin vest and deerskin shorts, the weather too warm for anything that would cover him up from head to toe. Fleetingly, he splashes his face with a little water from a basin that was given to him by Yoona for his last birthday. Not being the owner of a pair of boots or pumps, he goes barefoot from his hut and decides to walk beside the riverbank on his way to the Head Alpha’s hut; it’s too scenic of a picture to miss, he reckons, what with the blue sky bordering the forest and the mountains, all reflecting on the crystal surface of the water – although his eyes do watch the ground more than he would like them to, looking out for sharp rocks that might impale the soles of his feet; the smallest ones hurt the most.

It seems his subconscious had another reason for bringing him on this path, though; it often does cause him to wander. As soon as Chanyeol has walked most of the downward hill and come out on flat land, still guarded from the village by a number of pine and fir trees and the backs of people’s homes, he happens across Baekhyun squatting at the river’s edge. On his right is a pile of unwashed clothes and on his left is his wicker basket filled with wet furs. He scrubs each article carefully over the same washboard Chanyeol saw him carrying earlier, panting through his mouth and a little flushed in the face.

Once again, Chanyeol reminds himself that alphas are not supposed to talk to unmated omegas. It is a rule they have always had in their pack since the conjoining of the first wolves, to save an omega from abuse and an unwanted bond. That is why the word of their ancestors is so important. They observe the pack from the skies, witness all the good deeds and the wrongdoings, and when an omega comes of age, they choose the unmated alpha most suited for them. There have been occasions where no alpha was chosen for an omega, but Chanyeol has never witnessed it himself; they were only stories told to him by his adoptive grandmother, many years ago. Generally, the ancestors choose impeccably well, as Chanyeol is bitterly surrounded by an immense number of lovey-dovey couples and happy families.

The ancestors could still choose him for Baekhyun, but he doubts it. With Baekhyun and Sehun courting one another, supposedly of their own free will, why would their ancestors think to pull them apart? Even if the courting were not of their own accord, it is not like the ancestors get to see Baekhyun interacting with any other alphas because he’s not allowed to. But… maybe if no one knew about it?

As casually as possible, Chanyeol lowers himself to sit cross-legged beside Baekhyun and looks out across the rippling water. He can feel the omega looking at him in surprise, his movements paused for a moment before he seems to decide that he’ll just ignore Chanyeol and carry on. In all honesty, Chanyeol is a little flustered, though he would never admit it. He has never been this close to Baekhyun before, only been able to admire him from a safe distance where he wouldn’t attract anyone’s attention. Now, Baekhyun is a hundred times more handsome than before, and Chanyeol wonders if he’s being too hopeful for wanting Baekhyun to be thinking the same thing about him.

He doesn’t ponder on it for long, though, as he’s not here to just sit and watch the current. His mouth seems involuntarily unwilling to cooperate with his brazen thoughts, but he gets it to play along in the end.

“What are you doing?” he asks bluntly, voice a little harsher than he had intended, only because he had to force the words out. Submission to the Head Alpha and the ways of the pack is ingrained in his very being. Breaking the rule of talking to an unmated omega is hard to go against.

Again, Baekhyun is surprised. He stops, looks at him, seems pensive for a moment. This will be a situation he has never calculated a response for. Chanyeol decides to be lenient, giving Baekhyun time to work out what he’s supposed to do when faced with a renegade alpha like him.

Chanyeol dares to look at him, then finds that he can’t look away. He never realised how golden Baekhyun’s eyes are, how flawless his skin is, how intricate the lines of his face are in comparison to the slender, athletic shapes of his body.

Chanyeol struggles to swallow when the silence drags on; in itself, the silence is a flat-out rejection. Baekhyun shows no signs of replying to him, settling for watching him closely instead, and it makes Chanyeol feel just a little bit stupid. Or a lot. But then Baekhyun seamlessly returns to his duties and softly utters, “I am washing Sehun’s clothes.”

Instantly, Chanyeol’s heart judders to an almost complete stop. Baekhyun’s voice is pure heaven, though he knew that already. It is the fact that he has heard it, that Baekhyun has _spoken_ to him, that takes him aback. Chanyeol could be wrong, but he believes it to be an invitation – ask a question and it shall be answered. Perhaps, not all is unrequited, as Chanyeol once thought.

Surer of himself now that he’s had a response, Chanyeol’s next question comes out much softer and more curious than the last, as if the first were a prototype gone wrong. “Why are you washing Sehun’s clothes?”

He leans back on his palms in the hopes that he will make Baekhyun feel more relaxed. The last thing he would ever want to do is make him feel uncomfortable; make Baekhyun feel like he had to talk to him so as to not provoke him into doing anything unsavoury or illegal.

The omega continues to scrub the furs against the board, hard enough to clean the clothes but light enough to not pull out the hairs. His knuckles sometimes graze against the surface, rubbed red and raw, but he never shows any evidence of discomfort. There is definitely technique there, as if washing clothes is a sport that Baekhyun has mastered.

“Because my mother told me to,” he says, speaking in a gentle and quiet voice that Chanyeol finds to be so soothing not even a migraine would mind it.

Chanyeol frowns at that, dipping his toes into the leisurely water without much thought. The suds from Baekhyun’s soap dispel in ripples across the water’s surface, frothy white rings that grow and grow until they’re stretched too thin to be seen. Baekhyun will probably have to do this task every day for the rest of his life, and from the sounds of it, he doesn’t particularly light up at the prospect. _Because my mother told me to_ does not entirely correlate to _because I want to._

He wonders if Baekhyun knows what Oh Sehun is really like, or whether he only knows that which his mother has told him. Sehun is a bit of a traditionalist, in truth. The pack may pride itself on equality and acceptance, but Chanyeol suspects that Sehun believes the omegas are an inferior subspecies of wolf. He doubts Sehun would be the kind and caring mate that Baekhyun deserves.

Perhaps Baekhyun’s indifference and detachment to it all – clear from the lack of the ardent and giddy response that is usually present in omegas his age, especially those who are being courted – is proof that he has some idea of the real person his future mate is. It implies that he’s not all that pleased with the prospect, so Chanyeol hopes the ancestors will see that too.

“I’d rather you wash my clothes,” Chanyeol murmurs thoughtfully, his confession more than what meets the eye.

Baekhyun picks up on it instantly, turning to look at Chanyeol with a light pink dusted across the apples of his cheeks and the tip of his nose. He appears to be startled, if not just confused, and Chanyeol offers him a small, innocent smile, maybe apologising for how blunt he’s just realised his statement really was. He meant no harm by it, of course, only to hint at his true intentions. He’d rather Baekhyun wash his clothes. He’d rather Baekhyun be his mate.

“What is going on here?” The voice of a woman cuts through the moment like a falling tree. Chanyeol tears his eyes from the inquisitive expression on Baekhyun’s winsome face to find the omega’s mother, Baekshi, bearing over them with her hands on her hips. To Chanyeol’s surprise, Baekhyun doesn’t look nervous or worried, and instead returns to his washing duties as if there’s nothing wrong. It shows that he’s not afraid of her, and for some reason, Chanyeol finds himself swelling a little in pride.

Still, that does not mean to say that Baekhyun’s mother looks necessarily pleased to find them together. Though, there is nothing to suggest they have been talking to one another. It is not a crime to be in the same place at the same time, just a happy coincidence.

“I was on my way to Head Alpha,” Chanyeol begins with a smile, trying to be as charming as possible. He stands up and dusts off the back of his shorts, looking down at Baekshi with what he has designed to be a respectful and polite expression. “One of the vests Baekhyun was washing was lost to the current by mistake, so I went to retrieve it for him.”

Baekshi narrows her eyes and looks him up and down, arms now folded across her chest. She resembles Baekhyun greatly, yet her fetching looks fail to match her personality. Her mate died seven years ago. Ever since then, she’s been bitter and haughty. Covering her frail, wrinkled body is a dress made of fox pelts woven together, cinched in at the waist by a leather belt to give it more form. She wears pumps like Baekhyun, probably of her own creation, and has plaits in her hair. It is obvious that she takes pride in herself, Baekhyun is surprisingly humble for her only offspring.

“You are awfully dry for someone who has supposedly just waded into a river,” she scrutinises, words spoken so foully that her entire face screws up around them. It doesn’t do any favours to her complexion.

Chanyeol forces a calm chuckle. Best appease her in place of angering her. “It was in the shallows and I’m quite tall; the water only reached my knees. I dried pretty quickly as it’s fairly sunny today. Anyway, please excuse me. The Head Alpha will be waiting for my report.” He bows his head out of respect and starts to back away, glancing briefly at Baekhyun who is still washing Sehun’s furs in the river. When Chanyeol turns to leave properly, he restricts himself from looking back. Baekshi will be watching him like a hawk, waiting for him to slip up and make a mistake. He won’t give her the satisfaction of that, but he must be careful still. If anyone finds out he spoke to Baekhyun, it might end poorly for the both of them.

It seems unfair that Baekhyun will be placed in the hands of Oh Sehun without a second thought. Their ancestors will see them courting each other and believe that the bond is something they want, but Chanyeol doubts whether Baekhyun is even interested. He has no choice, though. No say.

Nights pass and the moon grows rounder in the sky, becoming ever closer to its fullest form. Every day when Chanyeol returns from his morning patrol, he sees Baekhyun heading towards the river with a basket of washing in his hands, and every day, Chanyeol sees Sehun talking with the mated omegas of the pack, asking them to deliver his gifts to Baekhyun on his behalf. Chanyeol bets none of the things Sehun does are sincere, but it could just be his jealously speculating.

One day, Baekhyun is given a pair of buckskin leggings, and on another, Yoona presents him with a small wooden figurine of a wolf. Sehun probably didn’t even carve that himself. Or make the leggings.

Baekhyun accepts it all with a smile, bowing his head in thanks as he receives a shower of presents every day, the majority of them useless. When Chanyeol leaves the Head Alpha’s hut after giving him his report one morning, he notices Baekhyun being presented with a giant bouquet of wild flowers. It is pink and purple and blue and white, large bluebells and yellow poppies bursting with colour, and to Chanyeol’s dismay, Baekhyun seems awed. This is the first time he has seen Baekhyun impressed with something he has been given by Oh Sehun, and it grates on his nerves.

Surely, Baekhyun cannot be starting to like him. The alpha is conceited and ungrateful, definitely not a match for an omega as sweet and considerate as him, probably not even a match for anyone in the pack – which has been known to happen to alphas in the past if they are too complicated. Nevertheless, it would be outrageous for Baekhyun to be swayed by something as menial as a bouquet of flowers. He doesn’t seem like the type of omega to only care about material things, not that that stops Chanyeol from competing in whatever competition he has started in his own head.

Impulsively, he strides over to a small patch of grass and (with a little too much ill-concealed anger) plucks the biggest buttercup. Seohyun just happens to walk past when he’s stood straight again, and Chanyeol stops her gently and asks if she may present it to Baekhyun on his behalf, taking a moment to coo at her daughter on her hip.

“To Baekhyun?” she repeats, as if thinking she might have heard him wrong. She’s confused, as is to be expected, but Chanyeol is relieved when she does as he requested.

He watches anxiously as she approaches Baekhyun with her graceful, measured steps, and elegantly reaches out to show him the buttercup. Chanyeol can feel his heart pounding, his hands growing clammy, as he strains to hear what they might be saying to one another. Are they talking about him? Is Baekhyun asking what’s going on? Does Baekhyun think him insane?

The omega takes the buttercup in his free hand and Chanyeol’s heart suddenly sinks into his stomach. What is a buttercup compared to a hundred flowers? What is he compared to Sehun? What can he give to Baekhyun when compared to the future Head Alpha?

His mind grows absorbed in the stark, depressing contrast between the bouquet and his own pathetic attempt at trying to enter the running. There is always the chance that the ancestors could take pity on him, but judging by the display of power here reflected in petals of red and blue, they are most likely to go with the alpha who can give Baekhyun all that he deserves. That alpha – it’s not him.

Despite everything – the inadequateness, the paling comparison, the failure – Baekhyun takes a sniff of the buttercup and then insistently looks around. Their eyes meet a moment later, Chanyeol’s breath punched from his lungs at the mere sight of him.

When he ends up with Sehun, Chanyeol hopes he will stop feeling this way – stop liking him, stop wanting him, stop desiring him.

Baekhyun offers him a quiet smile. Chanyeol’s returning smile is defeatist and melancholic, the feeble wave he attempts even more so. At least it makes Baekhyun’s smile a little louder. At least Baekhyun knows he’s serious.

As he watches Baekhyun walk away, Chanyeol’s eyes slowly glide to the ground. There’s a weight lying on the empty chasm of his chest, as if holding him back from chasing after his omega because he knows the pursuit would be pointless anyway. Oh Sehun is undeserving of him. The whole pack is undeserving of him. Even himself.

But even if all seems hopeless, Chanyeol was not raised to be a quitter. He won’t roll over and let another alpha take something he wants without a good fight. There might not be much he can do to persuade his ancestors. They may have already made up their minds. But he’ll try. He’ll try until he has done all that he can, and should he lose, he will do so admirably and with honour, knowing that he has given it all he has.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Chanyeol’s eyes open in the dim light before the dawn. All is still and quiet. Even the air is suspended, silence only broken when he lets out a single deep breath. His eyes roam across the thatched roof before curving down to the empty expanse beside him. He spares a moment to wonder whether he was too optimistic when he crafted his bed, building it to be two times the size of his wolf form and four times the size of him as a human. It could have been his heart pining for a partner, his subconscious telling him that, yes, there _is_ someone within the pack who he wants. Now, as he lies alone with the other half of the mattress cold and bare, fur blankets flattened and untouched, it only serves as a reminder of that which he cannot have.   

He only refers to this place as his home to make himself feel better.

The air is chilly against his naked skin when he pulls back the bed covers. The beeswax candles he lit last night have burned out; hard, rubbery puddles with what remains of their wicks littering the tree trunk stump he uses as a nightstand. He’ll have to scrape it off later, just another one of the things he has to do for himself without a mate at his side.

Ordering an omega around is something Chanyeol would never do, but a little help and companionship would be appreciated every now and again, someone to complain and joke about with. Doing chores would be a good bonding exercise, intimate in its own peculiar way. If Baekhyun were to ever become his mate, Chanyeol would like it if he did chores because he wanted to, not just because he thought it expected of him.

When Chanyeol stands, he stretches, and then squats down onto all fours. In his mind, _wolf, wolf, wolf,_ and he feels himself start to change. His body cracks and pops as his bones enlarge and elongate, though his teeth are always the first things to come, two sharp fangs squeezing into both his top and bottom rows. Black fur sweeps across his limbs like a sea as his palms turn puffy, swelling and consuming his fingers so that they may take the shape of paws. When he blinks, the grey gloom around him loses its blue hue; stepping outside, he finds the green trees to be silver now. The only colours he can differentiate between are red and yellow. All else is a mix of black and white.

It takes him three hours of continuous sprinting to complete his patrol. On the first leg, he splashes through the shallow edge of the river as it licks the bank, allowing himself a moment to feel young and alive, very much like the pup he used to be. He spends most of his days serious and overly mature, so it feels good to let go, release all the tension laced around his bones.

In the forest, he chases rabbits and squirrels, merely for sport, as they scamper along the mossy floor and, depending on which he’s chasing, down into burrows or up into the treetops. Following the path he has worn into the dirt over the past four years, he comes to a stop at the edge of a cliff he likes to think of as his. From here, he sometimes watches the dawn. Today he has missed it. The sun has already left repose and entered the main breadth of the sky, Chanyeol colouring it blue in his mind to make up for the grey his eyes can see.

He lopes back to the village from there in a steadier, more refreshing pace as he warms his muscles down. Briefly, he passes another alpha heading out on a different patrol route, but he is moving too fast, a blur, for them to greet each other in any way.

In the time he has been gone, the pack has awoken. Already, there is a group of tall men lingering outside the Head Alpha’s hut and the omegas are gathered in the village centre as usual. Today, some of them are threading pelts together, Baekhyun sat with a great blanket thrown over his lap as he weaves one badger’s skin to the next. A few are cooking around the campfire, others are playing with the children, and Yoona is focused on making candles, dipping long strings of wick weighed down by small stones into a great tub of hot wax, then switching over to cold water.

Baekhyun notices him instantly, Chanyeol daring to hope that he was perhaps waiting for his return. It feels nice, he realises, to be welcomed back, even if only by a glance. At least someone is aware that he is here and a part of the pack.

Instinctively, his tail gives a sharp wag when Baekhyun smiles at him, Chanyeol’s large, tapered ears pointing off to the sides. With only a mixture of yellows and reds in his palette, Chanyeol homes in on the pink of Baekhyun’s lips, finding it to be succulent and delicate.  Baekhyun’s mother, overbearingly sat beside him, turns to look just as Chanyeol jogs away. He knows she is watching, knows she’s suspicious, but what can he do when his heart has conquered his mind?

At home, he transitions and slips into his same clothes from yesterday after lounging in the water behind his hut. Some days, he takes the time to float like a star with all his limbs spread apart, and others, he chooses to quickly march straight in and out again, with a hasty dunk in between.

The seam down the side of his vest rips unexpectedly after being pulled too tight, brought on by a struggle to get his arm and elbow through the correct hole. His eyes drift over to what remains of his candles and decides that those will have to wait for later. He cannot walk around with his top gaping open all day.

In truth, he could always darn it himself, and has done that plenty of times in the past. His grandmother was an omega and taught him all she could before she passed, so it is not as if he is clueless in the ways of cooking, cleaning and creating. He knows his fair share. Yet fixing his own clothes at this moment in time would mean having to go out and hunt. To weave, he would need a thin strip of animal skin, and the omegas have plenty of hides down by the moonpost to share. They are arguably better than him as well.

He reports to Head Alpha before he sets his sights on Yoona and greets her with a kind smile. She appears overjoyed to see him, as is always the case with her, and hastens to show off her setting candles that hang two-by-two over the small beam of a wooden frame.

“Aren’t they pretty?” she asks excitedly, clapping her hands a little as she admires her handiwork again. Her long, wavy hair flutters over her shoulders whenever she turns, tumbling down the modest deerskin top she wears. Yoona has always been into fashion, style and appearances, and is even one of the only female omegas to wear trousers. Dresses are boring to her, she once told him, but sometimes she can make an exception for a skirt. “They’re the most even batch I have done so far! I bet you’ll want a few, won’t you?” She points at him with a knowing smile. “But I can’t be giving them away for free.” The finger she points with waggles at him teasingly, causing him to roll his eyes and smile despite himself.

“Is it proper for you to receive things from an alpha who isn’t your mate?” he plays lightly, watching her as he retakes her place on the log beside Seohyun and her little girl.

Yoona smirks at him. “You are looking at this from the wrong angle, Chanyeol. We are only trading our wares. What’s the harm in that? And, for four candles, I would like two otters, please. I intend on making myself a shawl.”

“Otters?” Chanyeol cries as he sits cross-legged at her feet. “They’re little ba—” Hurriedly and in alarm, he quickly shoots a look at Seohyun who’s just moved to shield her daughter’s ears. Clearing his throat of embarrassment, Chanyeol hastens to rephrase. “They’re really hard to catch!”

“And candles are really hard to make, Chanyeol! I think I’ve done my back in being hunched over those barrels for the past two hours.” Her smile is wide and kind as he leans forward, as if about to tell him a secret. “I will also fix that rip in your vest for another otter if you want.”

Scoffing, Chanyeol says “Deal” and strips himself of his vest so she can set to work. “When do you want the otters by?” he asks, trying to ignore the potent stares of a few mated omegas ogling his body. Their alphas mostly have large, rounded bellies by now, bodies soft instead of hard like his. He will let them dream in peace.

Yoona shrugs as she roots around in her satchel for a small wooden peg and a long strip of skin, probably slit off the end of a bear hide or salvaged from some offcuts. “Because I am the most lenient and best omega ever—” she winks at him while turning his vest inside out “—I’ll give you three months. I won’t need the shawl until winter anyway and we’re only just getting into summer, so you have plenty of time. It was a pleasure doing business with you, by the way.”  

Chanyeol rolls his eyes and turns his head away, discovering that it’s not only the mated omegas who are looking at him. A younger omega, Seulgi, has a face as red as her hair, and seventeen-year-old Kyungsoo keeps glancing across every few seconds while his hands shake over his sewing. Baekhyun, however, confident and bold, blatantly stares at him, his eyes roaming Chanyeol’s body in abandon before realising he’s been caught. His conviction frazzles and burns rosily against his face, head bowing just as his mother reaches to touch his arm.

“I think it is time you collected Sehun’s laundry,” she announces, voice stern and void of affection. “You’ll be washing his bedding today too.”

Baekhyun looks at her with an empty gaze. Blankly and obediently, without so much as a nod, he offloads his badger creation onto her knees and gets up to do as he’s told.

“He doesn’t seem very happy, Baekshi,” one of the older mated omegas, Boah, observes with scorn veiled by interest.

Baekshi bites back her anger at the remark. “I think he’s just impatient,” she says as she gently folds Baekhyun’s blanket. His work is, naturally, impeccable. “The full moon is still several days away.”

The other omegas nod, albeit they don’t look very convinced.

“There we are!” Yoona yips happily, putting Chanyeol’s vest the right way around again before handing it to him. “Good as new.” She beams with her sparkling eyes, tenderness in her features as if Chanyeol were her own pup, still a baby despite being a grown man and wolf.

He slips into his clothes with more care this time, wary of the new seam, and brings his head through the neck hole just in time to see Baekhyun wandering past with his wicker basket. Today, there is double the amount of washing that there normally is, both his hands straining on the handle so he doesn’t drop it. Chanyeol knows from the many times he has observed Baekhyun’s face that his jaw is clenched, whether that be from the sheer weight of his chores or his utter distaste for them in general.

“Thank you, Yoona,” he doesn’t forget to say, remembering his manners just like his grandmother taught him.

“Don’t mention it.” Her quaint hand gently rubs his upper arm once she has stood. “At least, don’t mention it until you’re here to deliver me my otters, of course.” A grin blossoms on her face as she takes her staple sharp rock and cuts the wicks of four hanging candles so they come free. “Here,” she offers them out carefully, “they should have set enough. Burn them wisely, Chanyeol.”

Chuckling, he holds them as if they are sacred, thanking her again before leaving the omegas to their peace and quiet. He fights the urge to see whether Baekshi is watching him, her piercing eyes seeking his destination. Instead, he tries to come across as casual as possible when walking in Baekhyun’s footsteps, the river in front of him. From a small patch of grass, he takes a daisy between his finger and thumb and picks it gently, twirling it by rubbing the pads of his fingers in different directions. His eyes spy Baekhyun sat on the bank again, washboard propped up between his parted knees this time as he scrubs what looks to be great blankets of fur against its surface. Chanyeol has never known someone to have as many clothes and bed covers as Oh Sehun; greedy extravagance at its finest, he supposes.

Baekhyun’s eyes cross when Chanyeol holds the daisy in front of his nose. A warm smile spreads across Chanyeol’s face at the reaction, coupled with the heat that flowers through his chest. Even when he doesn’t mean to be, the omega is adorable.

As Baekhyun’s eyes slowly turn to look at him, his irises golden brown in the sunlight, Chanyeol draws the daisy back a little and points discreetly to his ear.

“May I?” he asks, considerate, and reaches to place the stem of the daisy behind Baekhyun’s ear when the omega nods in consent. The very ends of his fingers graze against Baekhyun’s cool skin, his fingers numbing at the touch. It feels like a bolt of lightning has shot through his arm and struck him in the heart.

With pinched cheeks, Baekhyun turns back to his duty. Chanyeol thinks he recognises the fur of a snow leopard in the pile Baekhyun has yet to wash; it symbolises skill, but most of all, power. Not every alpha can track down a snow leopard in the maze of the mountains and kill it single-handedly. Chanyeol certainly can’t. He sticks to bears.

“How often do you have to wash Sehun’s clothes?” he finds himself wondering aloud, though knowing the answer anyway. He has seen Baekhyun wandering with a basket on his arm far too often for it not to be a daily occurrence. No other mated alphas are this demanding. All other omegas gather on Sundays to wash their family clothes, and Chanyeol swears he has not seen Sehun wear half of these things in the past month, let alone the past day.

“Every day,” Baekhyun replies with an almost perfectly guarded tone. “I wash the bedding once a week.”

Chanyeol’s eyes glaze over as he watches Baekhyun’s hands working through the hairs, rubbing and combing until his fingers have disappeared into soapy clouds. “It seems tiresome,” he murmurs gently, mindlessly picking at a small patch of grass just under his right hand while occasionally moving to stroke his new candles. “Does Sehun ever thank you for this?”

For the first time, Baekhyun laughs. It is a soft and airy sound, melodic in a spontaneous way, and it automatically pulls up the corners of Chanyeol’s mouth. He made him laugh. “You know that alphas and unmated omegas cannot talk to each other.”

Chanyeol smirks defiantly. “What are we doing now then?”

Baekhyun’s face is alight with mirth and rebellion. “Breaking the rules, I suppose.” It looks handsome on him – joy. Like the sun and moon coming together. “And no,” Baekhyun then adds, “he doesn’t ever say thank you.”

To be smiling and not realising it has Chanyeol’s heart floundering in his chest. He is in too deep already to be pulled out and for it to be painless. For a while, he focuses on Baekhyun’s washing methods, genuinely trying to learn a few tips here and there. He notices that the omega is forceful but never rough with his work, a natural nurturing instinct embedded into the very print of his fingertips. Whenever Chanyeol tries to wash his own clothes, he always ends up with clumps of fur floating off into the water around him. His grandmother never ceased to remind him of how useless he was at that, then gave him a few strawberries to sweeten the blow.

He tries to imagine what it would be like to see Baekhyun and Sehun about the village as a mated pair. They would become the figureheads of the pack, more so when Sehun becomes Head Alpha after his father joins their ancestors. Somehow, Chanyeol doubts they would be very affectionate with one another. Sehun has always been a brutally honest and apathetic wolf, never a romantic.

“Do you like Sehun?” Chanyeol pushes their boundaries further, testing just how personal he can go before Baekhyun closes up like a clam.

The omega stills and looks out conflictedly across the water. “Why are you asking me that?” he snaps lowly, more force behind the succeeding movements of his hands. In a sharp move, he pulls the sodden snow leopard pelt from the water and splats it ungracefully in his basket, as if condemning Sehun’s opulence.

More emotions than Chanyeol had expected are spilling out of Baekhyun today, bleeding through the cracks in his otherwise imperceptible defence. “I’m just curious,” he remarks with an open shrug, turning away so that Baekhyun is not under the pressure of his stare.

“I…” Baekhyun sighs, resolutely setting his washboard aside. “It’s not like I have a choice,” he quietly admits, though the flavour isn’t there; his voice is bland without anger or despair, and of course absent of the joy that suits him too.

“I take it that’s a no then,” Chanyeol surmises with slightly squinted eyes, rather liking how Baekhyun didn’t say ‘yes’ and instead implied that all this was being forced upon him.

Embarrassed, Baekhyun’s eyes him cautiously. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Baekhyun starts sorting through the pile of clothes he has yet to wash, a way to pretend that Chanyeol isn’t there. He appears sullen and grim, as though he hates how Chanyeol has seen through him and vocalised the truth that even he knows deep down inside. Being an avid people-watcher, Chanyeol knows all the tricks.

“If you washed my clothes for me, I would always say thank you,” he says in the quiet, punctured only by the occasional bird and the tinkling of the water as it laps at the bank, parched. His declaration causes Baekhyun to round on him.

“What exactly are you getting at?”

“I’m just saying, that if Sehun can have flowers delivered to you by the hands of others, he can give a ‘thank you’ just the same with another’s voice.” He delivers his reasoning nonchalantly, leaning towards Baekhyun by placing his weight on his left palm. Pleased with the surprised expression on Baekhyun’s face, and, dare he say another blush, he takes the time to revel in Baekhyun’s anger. It is one thing for an omega to feel frustration, and another for them to show it. Most times, they are looked down upon when feeling irritated or irked, so they frequently discipline themselves into staying neutral. Here, though, with him, Baekhyun seems free.

“A thank you is not necessary,” the omega insists rather meekly, dropping his head to look piteously over his labour. “As an omega, taking care of my alpha is my job.” Even he doesn’t sound convinced, though the words still hurt.

Chanyeol says, “But he’s not your alpha.”

Baekhyun claps back with, “Not yet.”

This time, his words cut. Chanyeol winces as if he has felt physical pain, once again imagining in his head what it would be like to see Sehun and Baekhyun sat together at one of the pack meals, watching him serve his alpha like a servant. Chanyeol might as well get used to that image. When their ancestors choose Sehun as Baekhyun’s mate – because they will, there is no use in denying it – Chanyeol will have to lay eyes upon his desire as he belongs to another man. Better to punish himself now with the pictures in his mind until he’s numbed, to save himself the pain of the real thing.

“You deserve someone better than him,” Chanyeol still mutters bitterly, and this time, Baekhyun doesn’t rebuke. They watch the river together in quiet, both contemplating their fates as if the burden of them is too heavy on their shoulders. Baekhyun will spend the rest of his life with a man who will not love him, and Chanyeol will spend the rest of his life longing for something he cannot have. Despair slowly starts to set in, causing Chanyeol to sigh. With an empty smile, he admits, “Sehun is better than me, though. I suppose that means I don’t stand a chance.”

He hears Baekhyun take a deep breath but refrains from looking over. No longer does he want to bear witness to Baekhyun’s beauty. A part of him would rather forget it. “Sehun is not better than you, Chanyeol. You are both equal. Just good and bad at different things.”

“Ah, because that makes me feel better.”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Baekhyun’s head turn swiftly to look at him. “You’re quite sensitive for an unmated alpha, you know. Usually most of you are just utterly miserable.”

“What can I say?” Chanyeol smiles ruefully. “I’m lonely.”

That makes Baekhyun mellow a little, as he spins towards him with a comforting smile. He probably doesn’t realise that he has closed some of the space between them, definitely doesn’t realise how he makes Chanyeol’s heart rocket in speed. “That makes two of us then,” he reveals with a sad but understanding expression, making Chanyeol’s insides melt.

He is about to ask about Baekshi, his mother, and how he could possibly be lonely while still living with a blood relative, when he hears the woman herself calling for her son through the trees. She always has to creep up on them and ruin their moments, doesn’t she? At least this time, she is giving Chanyeol warning and enough time to get away unseen.

“I’ll take my leave,” he mumbles as he gets to his feet, staying in a crouch just long enough to secure the daisy behind Baekhyun’s ear again. It becomes him, really. “Goodbye, Baekhyun.” The low timbre of his voice feels too intimate, but it matches his actions when he audaciously reaches for Baekhyun’s soapy hand and brings his knuckles to his lips. Chanyeol doesn’t see horror on his face, so decides that Baekhyun must have liked it, even if only a little bit. He leaves the omega awed by the river bank, just managing to get away before Baekshi arrives and starts lecturing Baekhyun on his poor pace.

Dawn breaks through the trees as Chanyeol races to the south. In a cloudless sky, the sun splashes handfuls of blue and gold across the horizon as the glittering light douses the world in warmth, the forest taken from the shadow of night and set in the gaze of the moon’s counterpart to bask. The heat creeps up Chanyeol’s spine and causes his fur to bristle, a grateful shudder sending tremors through his limbs until he decides to slow down.

He stops once he’s reached his cliff, tucking his hind legs under him as he sits on the overhanging lip and sniffs territorially at the air. The forest has taken over the fold in the hills below, grown right up to the sides of the river that lands in a large pool and then filters off in three different directions. Straight ahead to the east, a mountain couple slumbers, framing the rising sun as it stretches into the sky. He has missed the dawn again, but there is always tomorrow.

His scent is starting to fade slightly, so he takes a deep breath before easing onto four paws and propping one of his back legs in the air. He urinates without a care, hopping around a little so he can cover more ground, and once he’s done he scratches at the dirt to help it sink in. That should do the trick, he reckons, and decides to head home after a brief shake of his leg.

Lazily, he wanders through the forest, ears twitching every time a new bird starts to sing. He is still far enough away from the village that he cannot see it through the trees, and entertains the idea that he is the only wolf around for a little while. Although he imagines that his life would be simpler that way, and he wouldn’t be pining over an omega out of his reach, he knows he would come to be lonely and resent being an outcast. His grandmother taught him of love every time she gave him a cuddle and smooched him on the cheek. Is he so greedy to want it?

After a while, Chanyeol realises he can hear another set of footsteps alongside his own. He blinks from his thoughts to find a slender wolf in the trees ahead, the sunlight casting ripples over the glossy sheen of its sandy fur every time it moves. He has only seen Baekhyun in his wolf form several times, as the omegas do not tend to change unless they are pregnant or the whole pack is moving, but he knows it to be him; he recognises him straight away.

His wolf has a youthful look to its face. The fur around his large eyes is a soft cream colour, and more of the same can be found in tufts about his rounded ears. He is definitely fluffy for a mature wolf, even an omega, but he still has presence. While his thin muzzle and button nose suggest that he might have a few years left to grow, there is a maturity in the way he moves, the way he calculates his steps. He knows how to act around an alpha. He knows how to submit. His fuzzy ears are pressed back flat against his head and his tail is tucked between his hind legs, his golden eyes averting quickly when Chanyeol delivers him a stare.

In the small space provided by the parted trees, Chanyeol moves towards the omega and begins to walk circles around him, only doing so to fully appreciate his wolf form, not to intimidate him. He is rather delighted to find that the rest of Baekhyun’s body is covered in fluff too, especially on his undersides and the inner faces of his legs, both front and back. His tail is big and bushy in a feathery way, and the tip curls out perfectly into one fine point. In comparison, Chanyeol looks rather shaggy and unkept, but he likes to think it is part of his charm.

He’s unable to admire Baekhyun’s body any further, when the omega starts to follow him around as he treads circles. Watching Baekhyun bouncing on the spot to keep up with him has him tickled, so Chanyeol stops moving to stretch his front legs out before him and raise his hind quarters in the air, bowing playfully while whining in the back of his throat. He nudges Baekhyun’s shoulder once he’s eased out of his position, and freezes in surprise when he feels a wet lick against the fur under his ear.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Baekhyun starts grooming him. He feels little nibbles against his throat before the wet slathering of his tongue, feels Baekhyun nosing around the socket of his shoulder before lapping at an unruly whirl of fur on the back of his neck to try and set it down. Chanyeol’s wolf comes alive, his whining and whimpering growing louder as he turns to face Baekhyun and mouth at his muzzle, daring to land a lick on his cheek just under his eye. Baekhyun returns it all – the noises, the grooming, the nuzzling. He wishes this moment would never end.

He wants to ask Baekhyun what he’s doing out here, whether he came looking for him intentionally or whether this was just a happy coincidence. He wants to ask, but he cannot without changing back into his human form; revealing his naked self to Baekhyun when they are not that familiar with one another could send him spooked from the forest. For now, he’ll believe that Baekhyun came to find him, and as Baekhyun licks dotingly around his jaw, he has chance to see all the ripples of sunshine on his fur. Sunshine, though, means that dawn has long passed. The pack has probably already awoken, and Baekshi will find her son missing from his bed.

With a few more nudges and touches, Chanyeol gets Baekhyun to walk beside him. Their coats are glued together, legs stitched, and Chanyeol starts to wonder what this means. Is this Baekhyun choosing him? Is this Baekhyun letting the ancestors know how he feels? Or is Baekhyun just trying to get away from Sehun? He needs to know. Chanyeol feels silenced in the body of his wolf.

Baekhyun bids him goodbye when the village is visible through the trees. He stops to sniff at a sack propped up against the base of a tree, peering at Chanyeol with his golden eyes that seem awfully sad all of a sudden. For good measure, the alpha whines one last time before he turns towards home, leaving Baekhyun to transition and then dress himself in the clothes he packed for his wandering in the wild.

He makes quick work of leaving his wolf behind once he’s in his hut, wearing the same clothes as yesterday and grimacing at the smell of sweat clinging to the leather. He’ll have to wash them at some point, and clean up the old candles still a mess on his nightstand too. Making a mental note of all he needs to be done, he ticks off the first box by going to deliver his report.

“The territories are clear,” he says to Sehun’s sire, head bowed and hands clasped behind his back. The Head Alpha is both taller and more muscular than he is, with a head of thick grey hair and eyes of dark blue. He wears the rare skin of a snowshoe hare as a waistcoat, unlaced to show off his toned torso, but has the regular skin of a deer wrapped around each leg in shorts that reach just above the knee, though the ends are decorated with the fiddly skins of chinchillas.

“That’s good.” The Head Alpha smiles, looking up from a tapestry he’s working on – a hobby of his – from a candlelit corner in his hut. “And our scents are still strong?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Good. Thank you, Chanyeol.” He has a deep voice, but Chanyeol’s is deeper. Chanyeol likes to think that he’s better than his son too, though he knows that he isn’t.

He bows slightly before he turns to leave, stepping from the Head Alpha’s hut and out into the village centre where the omegas are gathered. Baekhyun is stood stiffly beneath the moonpost, hands at his sides and eyes focused on his mother in front of him. She’s making gestures with her hands, sometimes pointing with one finger, sometimes pointing with all five, and seems to be coaching him through something, some kind of ceremony.

It hits Chanyeol like a landslide when he remembers that tonight is the full moon. Tonight, the ancestors will choose a mate for Baekhyun, an alpha for him to spend the rest of his life with, carry the children of. The moonstone will glow and bestow the chosen one with glittering moonlight.

Sehun.

“When the ancestors pick your mate, you will walk to them and bow your head, and greet them as ‘Alpha’,” Baekshi explains, taking Baekhyun by the elbow and eagerly guiding him towards Kyungsoo, probably Sehun’s ‘stand-in’ for the rehearsal. “Then the two of you will return to your alpha’s hut and he will mate you.”

 _He will mate you._ Chanyeol rolls his eyes as he trudges away. What a disgusting way to phrase it.

At least he has chores stacked up to keep his mind occupied for the rest of the day. He scrapes at the disfigured candle wax first, then sets up his candles from Yoona. He washes his clothes in the river behind his hut and hangs them out to dry in the sun. He even transitions again and tries to find some otters, yet they evade him.

The night is young when he returns to the village. The pack supper has ended, but Chanyeol’s stomach is full from feeding as his wolf. Undressed, he sits on the edge of his bed and slumps his shoulders. Anxiety has welled itself a deep gash in his chest, burrowing and burrowing further until he’s antsy and even flinches at nothing. Tonight, he will lose Baekhyun for definite.

“Please,” he whispers to his ceiling, praying that the ancestors will hear him. “I’d be good to him, I swear. I would never hurt him in any way.”

Deflating in defeat, he finishes with: “I’d only love him.” Though he thinks he might love him a little already.    

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

When midnight is approaching, it feels like there is static in the air, the same kind that comes just before a thunderstorm. Chanyeol finds it hard to keep still down to his very toes, always twitching and wincing without having a real reason to. It is with a heavy heart that he leaves the safety of his hut behind and heads down to the village centre, filing in with the other pack members who are all heading the same way. The whole pack will be present tonight, even the mated alphas and the young children. It is custom for everyone to bear witness to the ceremony and see a pair become bonded.

They gather in a single file circle around the moonpost. Chanyeol’s eyes threaten the moonstone, daring it to pick someone other than him. His own words ring in his head, mocking him because now he feels like they weren’t enough, like he should have said more – _promised_ more. But there is nothing he can do about it now.

To cease the trembling in his fingers, he clenches his hands into fists and keeps them that way, eyes roaming the crowd and finding Oh Sehun looking irritably smug beside his father. His fists twitch.

Baekhyun isn’t here yet, neither is his mother. He will be getting ready in his hut instead, donning the traditional white furs of an omega on their mating night, the night they start to belong to someone else.

There are a few torches lit around the circle but not many, a certain modesty in the flames. When the times comes for the moon to shine upon an alpha, the beam cannot be outdone by fire.

Chanyeol has seen this ceremony a handful of times now. The first time was when he was six, watching Boah in her white dress stand beneath the ancestors and heed their bidding. The last time was sixteen moons ago, when Yoona was paired up with Minhun, an exuberant alpha who slightly intimidates Chanyeol with his endless zest. He sees them stood together now, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, looking annoyingly in love. If they can be happy, why can’t he?

A few moments before midnight, the Head Alpha steps forward and takes the attention of the pack. He opens his arms wide as if to embrace them all, and lets his eyes look upon each and every wolf, alpha and omega, to let them know that they matter.

“Here we are again!” he exclaims happily, receiving hearty cheers in reply. Events like these always bring the pack closer together, even though they are woven so tightly anyway. It gives them something new to have in common. After the mating, everyone spends the honeymoon period gossiping to one another about the happy couple, guessing when they’re going to have pups, betting on what their genders will be. It is a spark of new life into their tried and tested routine, with the promise of new young ones to fawn over in a few years’ time.

“An omega has come of age! Our Baekhyun. Tonight, the ancestors will choose him an alpha, a mate to protect and serve him for life. We will all wish him well at the start of this new chapter.”

The pack cheers again, then the circle parts slightly behind where the Head Alpha stands to allow Baekhyun and his mother to come through. He looks splendid in white, the furs he wears heirlooms passed down through the generations from a time when the arctic fox was common in these parts. They have been recycled and resewn to fit many omegas, and tonight it is Baekhyun who embellishes them, looking even more handsome than he usually does.

His mother touches him gently on the arm and offers him a proud smile as Baekhyun paces warily towards the centre of the circle. Barefoot, he stands beneath the moonpost and digs his toes nervously into the dirt. His eyes are uncharacteristically frightful as they search the group, going from Sehun to Chanyeol perfectly, as though he doesn’t need to see them to know exactly where they are.

Chanyeol has all his focus directed towards the moonstone. If the ancestors could read his mind, they would hear him begging, pleading, inwardly sinking to his knees to grovel and scratch at the floor. Baekhyun is just someone he _has_ to have, there is no other way about it. Either he becomes mated tonight, or his world ends.

“You look lovely, Baekhyun!” an older omega calls to him, startling Baekhyun from his trance. He replies with a wobbly smile.

“You are beautiful, my child!” praises another.

Baekshi looks on complacently.

“Midnight is approaching,” announces the Head Alpha, pointing towards the moonstone on the top of the pole as it starts to glow. The moon has gotten stronger in the past few minutes, what torches that were lit seeming to dim slightly in its favour. From the skies, the ancestors are gathering their power, ready to choose.

Bright blues and lilacs scatter over Baekhyun’s figure, turning his furs different colours and painting patterns on his skin. Sparks of rainbow-coloured light start to shoot through the stone, spinning around the circumference of the globe so fast that the area around it starts to blur. The whole pack watches in awe as the corona forms, the power inside the moonstone breaking free and stretching from its boundaries in the shapes of sunflower petals.

With a light hissing, a single beam of moonlight concentrates itself on the floor, sent there by the ancestors’ power to steer it through the moonstone. Others join it, whispering as they arc through the air and burst on the floor, splashing like water. Chanyeol never properly remembers how breathtaking the performance is each time it happens, but instead of being entranced by it, this time, he is challenging it.

The separate beams conjoin to form one great ray of light – pure, white, sparkling brilliance. Baekhyun is all but hidden behind it until it starts to circulate the pack, almost like doing a welcome lap to greet all their relatives who are still flesh and blood. Out of respect, the pack members bow their heads, Chanyeol doing the same for his grandmother, Baekhyun doing so for the father he lost. Then it is the moment of truth. The beam stops before Baekhyun again, then slowly making its way around to the right. Baekhyun is staring at Chanyeol with wide eyes, because the moonlight is not destined for him.

It is destined for Sehun.

As it shines over Sehun’s toes, and no doubt the rest of him, Chanyeol realises the extent of his foolishness. Of course, the ancestors would never pick him. Of course, he isn’t good enough. How could he have ever thought he could change their minds?

Broken, beaten, he turns to take his leave.

Perhaps he should start looking at the other omegas more closely now. There’s Kyungsoo with his endearingly poor eyesight, and Seulgi with her randomly inappropriate jokes. Perhaps one of them could make him happy, give him a fraction of the joy that Baekhyun brings to him just by existing. Or maybe, he is meant for loneliness. Even his mother abandoned him days after he was born. If she didn’t want him, who else will?

Gasps sound out and Chanyeol bitterly connects them to everyone’s glee. How happy they must feel to have found their future Head Omega in Baekhyun, the prettiest omega in the pack. Just to punish himself more, to get it into his head that Baekhyun can never and _will_ never be his, he turns to glance over his shoulder, only to become blinded by the light that hits him.

There is a long and painful breath of silence where Chanyeol squints to try and see anything other than white, and then the moonstone begins to fade. He finds himself staring at a shocked Baekhyun, breathing heavily with his heartbeat roaring in his ears, his whole body back to twitching at the slightest thing. The pack, on the other hand, is distressingly still.

Everyone is looking at him, yet Chanyeol’s head is too busy with _they picked me, they picked_ me _._ The ancestors – they chose him. They _heard_ him. He will become Baekhyun’s mate for the rest of his days, serve him and protect him, _love_ him. He is suddenly swarmed with a relief so powerful that his mind goes lax, his eyes absorbed sightlessly in the vision of Baekhyun wearing his white furs; soon the both of them will be wearing nothing, mating to strengthen the bond that has already partially formed between them. It feels weak and frail at the moment, but it will thicken, grow, and eventually become unbreakable.

“What does this mean?” Baekshi’s voice cracks, and then the spell is lifted. A cloud covers the moon, the fires revive, and restlessness pollutes the air. The pack members start to whisper, gossip, and turn to one another with confused looks on their faces, stunned at what has just happened.

“The ancestors have chosen Chanyeol as Baekhyun’s mate,” Yoona declares, splitting the pack in half.

“They chose Sehun too!” one of Sehun’s friends cries. “And they chose him first!” another points out.

“But they changed their mind at the last second and picked Chanyeol,” Seohyun calls, cradling her daughter close and pushing her face into her neck to protect her from the loud noise. “That means they chose Chanyeol!”

Then, the pack is in uproar.

“An omega cannot have two alphas!” shouts an angered hunter, stepping forwards.

“Which one will be Baekhyun’s mate?” another omega panics. “Are we to decide for ourselves?”         

Spat from the snarl of the Head Alpha’s closest companion: “This is ridiculous! What were the ancestors thinking?! Sehun and Baekhyun were courting each other!”

“Chanyeol must have broken the rules!”

It all swims in front of Chanyeol’s eyes like a heavy mist he can’t see through. Baekhyun is stolen from his sights as the pack converges beneath the moonpost to express their outrage, arguing with one another back and forth about who Baekhyun’s mate should be. Never before have the ancestors picked two alphas, and never before have they changed their mind halfway through a ceremony. Chanyeol has no idea what happens now, no idea whether Baekhyun is his mate or Sehun’s, no idea whether the ancestors were playing a practical joke or if they really were confused, so he just stands there in a daze, trying to comprehend it all. He went from despair to surprise and then pure glee in the space of about a minute, and now he has been destroyed again.

“The ancestors’ choice must not have been a unanimous decision!” Baekshi yells to the Head Alpha across the ruckus. “We cannot mate Baekhyun when the ancestors are undecided! It would be unfair to both alpha and omega!”

Out of everything raging on before him, Chanyeol sees the Head Alpha nod in agreement and feels his hopes come tumbling down.

“Everyone! Everyone! Can I please have your attention?” The Head Alpha’s voice booms out over the crowd, his hands in the air to further invade their senses. Before Chanyeol can really understand what’s going on, the will of the ancestors is already being undermined and discredited, as though their decision was an accident.

At the call, the pack members start to hush themselves, gathering around to listen to what their Head Alpha, their main protector and leader, has to say.

“In matters like this, the ancestors _must_ agree unanimously, for the sake of our children’s happiness.” There are low murmurs of agreement. “Tonight, it is clear that no such decision has been made. The ancestors cannot decide between Sehun, my son, and Chanyeol, so I believe it is best if we give them more time. We shall wait another month, and during the full moon of June, we shall receive our final answer. Do we all concur?”

To Chanyeol’s dismay, everyone supports and consents to the notion. He has to admit, though, that if he were only an onlooker, he would believe it to be a fair course of action too. It’s just that he is not an onlooker, he is Baekhyun’s _mate,_ and they are all keeping them apart, just to see him suffer.

Baekhyun, who has been shunned for most of the debate, looks at him desperately like he wants to say something. He seems troubled and unsure, but before he can find his voice, his mother is dragging him violently away from the moonpost. She sends Chanyeol a withering glare, one that would likely kill him if looks could do such a thing, and yanks her son away into hiding. His eyes find Sehun’s next, the murderous stare there no better than either Baekshi’s or the Head Alpha’s, and Chanyeol starts to realise what’s happening. He spins on the spot to find Baekshi and Baekhyun’s retreating silhouettes becoming fainter and smaller, and hurriedly starts to pursue them.

He approaches at a fast walk, figuring that the pace will be enough to catch up with them. They are only walking themselves, Baekshi’s hand wrapped firmly around Baekhyun’s elbow so she can tug him along like a dog. Everything about her – her way of speaking, her actions, her appearance – is unmotherly. There is no kindness in her words, no tenderness in her movements, no consideration in her expression; instead, she’s all blunt, sharp and careless. 

“Hey!” Chanyeol yells, voice thick with fear as he continues to follow them. He swears they have sped up to evade him, Baekshi’s grip on Baekhyun’s arm now punishing. “Hey, wait! Baekshi, wait!”

Baekshi hisses at Baekhyun to walk faster but he ignores her, not that it helps Chanyeol. In the end, he has to break out into a jog, taking them by surprise when he suddenly appears in front of them on one of the paths between the huts. It is dark here, and they are hidden from the rest of the pack. Chanyeol briefly wonders whether Baekshi would do anything to hurt him, but seeing as she is so focused on her son, he thinks not.

Baekhyun is quickly shoved out of sight, Baekshi baring her teeth to snarl at him like she would if she were in her wolf form.

“Baekshi, please, let me talk to him.” Chanyeol’s hand reaches out to Baekhyun but she mercilessly slaps it away.

“ _No_ ,” she growls, taking a bold step towards him with one arm still locked on Baekhyun behind her. “You will _not_ talk to him. Talking to him in the first place is what made this mess, don’t think I don’t know. You are never talking to him again, Chanyeol. _Ever._ ”

Chanyeol promptly lurches into her way when she tries to shove past. “Baekshi, the ancestors chose me—”

“They are confused, Chanyeol!” she laughs, exasperated, as if this is a fact that he really should be accepting and is stupid not to be. For a woman who goes in tandem with negligence, suddenly she is treating him like a child. “They were supposed to pick Sehun,” she states matter-of-factly, crushing Baekhyun’s arm again when she senses he is about to say something. “Baekhyun is to mate with him, not you.”

Irritation is quick to flare as Chanyeol stares at the deluded mother of a son who looks so helpless. Baekhyun’s eyes are on him, pleading but also understanding, and other than talking, Chanyeol can think of no other way to get this woman to just _listen_ to him, to just hear what he’s trying to tell her. The ancestors chose him, that’s all there is to it.

Incredulous, he asks, “Why are you being like this? Just because you didn’t get your way you have to put your nose in everything! Have you even stopped to consider what Baekhyun wants? Or what I want?”

“Mum—”

“ _Everything_ I do is in my son’s best interest, Chanyeol. _Everything._ ” She has the audacity to look reproached, completely ignoring the only thing she claims to care about when he tries to speak. “My son is not meant for you. You are beneath him.”

With one last yank to Baekhyun’s bones, Baekshi lugs him away.

Chanyeol realises he is crying when he blinks after a long moment of staring at nothing. The tears feel cool and light against his skin and his inhale is snotty when he tries to breathe, and his heart… He can feel the bond within himself, feel the loneliness growing in his chest as Baekhyun gets further and further away from him, both physically as well as mentally. The ancestors may have chosen him but the pack will never accept it. What can he do now?

Suddenly cold and drowned in a pitiful silence, Chanyeol treads home with his head hanging between his shoulders. He consoles himself with the fact that Baekhyun will not have a mate for another month. If he proves himself worthy in the next four weeks, proves himself to be the best suited alpha for Baekhyun, perhaps next time the moonlight will avoid Sehun completely. That way, there will be no debate, no deliberation, and no one around to steal his mate.

In the morning, it becomes clear that most of the pack have turned against him. It is considerably obvious, really, as everywhere he goes, the people around him turn their backs so they can whisper about how he’s gone rogue, about how he’s not a civilised member of the pack anymore.

“I always knew he was an odd one,” he catches a male omega saying to his mate.

“He hardly talks,” the alpha replies, shamelessly staring Chanyeol up and down as he helps Yoona carry her vegetables home.

“Probably because he was too busy planning how to steal Baekhyun away.”

Unfortunately, they are not alone in thinking that way.

There are still some who like him, Yoona for one. Minhun is another, along with a few other older pack mates who used to be friends with his grandmother. They seem to sympathise with him, and so have been much friendlier than usual. They smile and they greet him, and when he dares come down for the pack supper, they sit beside him when no one else wants to. He would be thankful for it, if he did not have to watch Baekhyun serve Sehun the entire time and be reminded of why everyone hates him in the first place.

It is only a few days after the full moon when the Head Alpha asks to speak with him. Chanyeol is expecting the worst, expecting to be banished and left in the wild to die as a lone wolf, but instead, his leader gives him a longer morning patrol route and asks him to do the same in the evening. That is eight hours of running a day, and although he knows it will exhaust him, Chanyeol begrudgingly accepts. Either that or have his worst fear come true.

Every day when he wakes up, he can feel their bond waning. That night, their souls latched onto one another’s as though they jumped into each other’s arms, and now they’re being ripped apart and confined to different classes, never to speak again. He hardly sees Baekhyun anymore, and when he does, he is always heavily guarded by his mother. Always doing something for Sehun. Sometimes, he ponders whether Baekshi is doing it on purpose, deliberately putting Baekhyun in his way to rub it in his face that he is not, and never will be, his.

The courting between Baekhyun and Sehun has carried on like normal, as if the full moon never happened and Chanyeol never got in the way. More often than not, Baekhyun is doing something for Sehun, washing ten times the amount of clothes he used to and now starting to tan the skins of all the kills he brings back – which really is an excessive amount. The times when Chanyeol catches him sitting and doing something of his own free will are few and far between. Scratch servant. Baekhyun has become a slave.

He stops going to pack meals eventually. Baekhyun’s presence causes his feeble heart to palpitate and ache. Instead, Chanyeol has taken to hunting when running his tiresome patrol routes, catching small animals and roasting them over a private campfire outside his hut in his own company – small, to prevent waste. Sometimes, he fails and has to go hungry; he cannot bring himself to face the pack anymore. 

Even when he is outside, Chanyeol feels like there are walls closing in on him, as if the sky itself is cracking and bending and about to swallow him whole. The glares he receives from his surrounding alphas and omegas are all scratches against his skin, wearing him down until all he is are brittle bones and weakened resolve. He can’t blame them, though. He did break the pack rules. He would imagine the punishment would be far worse if any of them ever found out, should Baekshi decide to expose him.

One evening, coincidentally on a day where a rabbit vanished down a burrow while hunting, Yoona drops by to say hello, bringing with her a plate of food from the pack supper which he quickly scarfs down. She’s wearing a cropped, sleeveless top with leggings today, and some weird strappy shoes that don’t look very practical at all – (“I’m calling them ‘sandals’,” she says, making a grand gesture with her arms. They tread well on the beaches past the forest, apparently.)

“How are you doing?” she enquires as she makes her way around Chanyeol’s hut, tidying random things she finds along the way. She dusts off his fur couch cushions and even picks up a broom to sweep around his feet, tutting at the pile of pelts on the floor — skins from all his recent meals. “I can make something with these if you’re not going to use them,” she says offhandedly, leaning down to pick them all up and give them a little shake. The leather has gone stiff, but with a good soak they should be salvageable.

Chanyeol only grunts.

Yoona lets out a sigh then, briefly moving back into the bedroom and most likely straightening out the blankets, though Chanyeol doesn’t turn around to check.

“I find it all ridiculous myself,” she calls from the other end of the hut. “The whole point of having the ancestors choose is so we can avoid situations like this. So that an omega can be with the alpha most compatible to them. Clearly, the ancestors decided you would be a better alpha than Sehun. I just don’t understand why they won’t accept it – Head Alpha and Baekhyun’s mother, I mean. I saw it with my own eyes, Chanyeol. The moonbeam hardly touched Sehun at all. It literally only touched his toes. His _toes,_ Chanyeol, and yet they’ve all gone off saying that the ancestors are confused and whatnot. Gosh, it really is all so ridiculous.”

Chanyeol loses his appetite. He never saw just how much Sehun was bathed in the moonlight. The pack had made it sound as though Sehun was completely drenched in it before it moved onto him instead, but if it was only Sehun’s toes, then the ancestors never really chose him at all.

“It should have been Sehun anyway,” Chanyeol mumbles, putting his wooden plate on the floor, half his supper uneaten. “That’s what they all wanted and that’s why they’re so against me. The ancestors’ choosing is more like a blessing now. They don’t normally go against what the pack themselves decide because all they get to see is the alpha and omega courting each other. Other alphas aren’t allowed to get involved.” He scoffs, running his fingers through his hair just to let some of his frustration out before he mistakenly directs it at Yoona. “How are they to know at all who is best suited for an omega when we’re not even allowed to talk to them? Whose stupid idea was that?” 

Yoona reappears with compassion in her eyes, a few blankets slung over her forearm. “But they chose you, Chanyeol, and you didn’t talk to Baekhyun.” Chanyeol freezes and turns to look guiltily up at her. Her eyes bulge. “You _spoke_ to him?!”

“A little, yes,” he admits quietly. “They were only short conversations.”

Yoona looks shocked, a gasp having left her jaw slack, but it doesn’t stick for long. For the ancestors to have chosen him over Sehun, it would make sense that he must have done something out of the ordinary. They were not officially courting one another, after all, everyone knows that and continues to remind him of it every day.

“Well, what did you talk about then?” she asks, voice chipper and genuinely interested.

Chanyeol smiles bitterly at the irony, dropping his head to watch as his fingers trace the creases in his shorts. “Sehun,” he mutters. “We talked about Sehun.”

Yoona is quiet, then releases a sombre: “Oh.”

Chanyeol almost wants to cry. He had two chances to talk to Baekhyun, face to face and alone in private, and yet all he asked him were questions about Sehun. _Why are you washing Sehun’s clothes? Does Sehun ever thank you for this? Do you like Sehun?_ What a waste. He should have asked him about his hobbies, his favourite colour, what song he likes best. Not Sehun. Not the alpha he didn’t want to mate with.

“I’m going to wash these blankets for you, by the way.” Yoona flashes him a pretty smile in an attempt to cheer him up. “I made your bed and checked the mattress. I think you’ll need to top up the mountain goat fur soon, the same as me, so Minhun’s going on a hunting trip in a few days. I’ll ask him to pick up some extra for you.”

He knows Yoona is only doing it to take some of the weight of responsibility off his shoulders, but Chanyeol can’t help feeling useless for it. “You don’t have to do that, Yoona,” he murmurs pensively, but she rebukes and insists, leaving his hut with ample new jobs added to the end of her list.

To distract himself from everything, Chanyeol just runs. When he returns each time, he has taken to delivering his report in wolf form, barking once outside the Head Alpha’s hut to get his attention and then patting the ground twice with his right paw to show that everything is okay. He used to enjoy the walk back through the village before, after he would return home and transition into his human form, but it is less enjoyable now that everyone is so hostile towards him.

Each time he passes by Baekhyun’s hut and sees a new bouquet of flowers in a pot by the doorway, like a symbol of ownership, he has to stifle a growl. Sehun probably doesn’t even pick and arrange the flowers himself, and although all Chanyeol could give Baekhyun was a buttercup and a daisy, at least he did it off his own back. At least he had the care to think about it first.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

A heavy sigh leaves him and his wolf weary and downtrodden. Chanyeol mulls sombrely as he watches the mountainous husband and wife raise their child into the sky. Light spreads across the hills and the fold, turning the water from grey to a golden yellow, while what clouds there are glow pink as they ruffle across the sky. Mist hangs low in the air this morning, swirling through the forest and thrashing when it turns too close to the waterfall. The dawn brings warmth to his skin, but not his heart; it is locked in a place where it can no longer beat.

His ears twitch and strain when he picks up on the padding of soft paws somewhere behind him. In his mind, he expects it to be Minhun come to comfort him, or Sehun come to confront him, but before he can turn to fully identify the approaching wolf, there is a fluffy muzzle nestling itself beneath his jawbone and the sound of a familiar whine reaching his ears.

Baekhyun is the last person, or wolf, he expected to see – even more so after everything that’s happened. His elegant wolf pads around to face him, golden eyes twinkling before he bows his head and brings it up beneath Chanyeol’s snout, sandy ears flicking across what would be his lips. Chanyeol quickly stands up on all fours, ready to reciprocate if not for Baekhyun wandering off and leaving him alone. Confusion settles in before any realisation does, but before his mind can fully comprehend why Baekhyun has done what he has and left so suddenly, he is coming back in human form.

He is fully clothed, wearing a set of shorts and a vest, much like what Chanyeol himself wears. “I have some spare clothes,” he says, holding up a sack, “in case you want to change too.”

He wants to talk, Chanyeol realises, and promptly avoids his eyes to try and figure out what it is that he had better do. His heart wants one thing but his punishing morals want another. Chanyeol doesn’t know who to side with, so he distracts himself by getting changed – his subconscious unwittingly steering him yet again.

Out of respect, Baekhyun turns his back on him while he transitions, Chanyeol’s naked human body materialising on the ground before he reaches for the sack and takes out the clothes provided. He chooses to only wear the shorts, knowing full well that both those and the vest will be too small for him anyway. Baekhyun seems a little startled when he spins on his heel to find him still half naked, but recovers quickly. It’s not like he hasn’t seen him this way before.

“Hello,” Baekhyun greets, voice crisp yet soft and mellow all the way through.

Chanyeol returns the pleasantry with a dazed voice, too focused on appreciating Baekhyun’s face from such close quarters. He hasn’t been this close to him since the night of the full moon, almost a week ago, and he inwardly berates himself for forgetting how effortlessly handsome he is, truly beautiful in the most natural way.

“What are you doing out here?” Chanyeol wonders, pondering whether the same affections that were demonstrated as their wolves can be carried over to their human forms. He longs to touch Baekhyun’s face, lick along the column of his neck and nose through his hair, yet as humans, it feels as though words get in the way. Everything is more complicated.

Baekhyun smiles at the question. “I just came out for a walk,” he replies. “It’s something I do every so often, usually in the mornings.” He faces the sunrise and the light perspiration on his skin catches in the light. “It’s nice – being my wolf for a bit. I’m not allowed to transition in the village and my mother would never let me come out as a human during the day anyway. ‘It’s not safe in the woods for an omega’ and all that. You are on patrol, I see.”

Chanyeol perks up. “Yeah,” he murmurs, coming to stand beside Baekhyun as the sun grows old and leaves its parents behind. “I’m not really making good time, just being sat here, but I doubt the Head Alpha would care,” he chuckles bitterly. “I know he’s trying to keep me away from the village.”

“You think so?” Baekhyun sounds surprised, looking over at him with wide eyes. “Why would he do that?”

“Why do you think?” scoffs Chanyeol, bowing his head to the floor and mindlessly kicking a rock off the edge of the cliff. A wash of silence follows his question and Chanyeol gathers that Baekhyun understands. He shows Baekhyun a smile after he finds guilt on his face, then decides to set a pace between them. They begin to walk back through the forest, leaving the rising sun behind and heading towards where the village is with no real desire to reach it, as if they have set their sights on an unattainable horizon.

“How did you manage to bring the sack with you?” Chanyeol asks as they meander, pointing at the bag Baekhyun holds in one hand. “In your jaw?”

“Ah,” Baekhyun smiles, “no. I have a rope, see.” He holds it up to show him, fingers curled elegantly around its shape. “I hang it up at home and put my head through the loop. Like I said before, I’m not allowed to walk out here on my own, and though I like being my wolf, it’s nice to experience this place as a human too; the colours, especially.”

Chanyeol hums with a nod, running his hands up his arms as goosebumps scatter across his flesh, courtesy of the sun chasing away the cool summer night. “Can your mother not just put the sack around your neck?” he wonders, thinking with distaste of Baekshi and her attitude.

“She’d have a heart attack if she knew,” Baekhyun utters quietly, slinging his sack over his shoulder on the loop and hugging himself.

“So she doesn’t know you’re out here?” Chanyeol draws to a stop, Baekhyun copying him only a second later.

He smiles sheepishly. “No. No, she doesn’t. She…” Baekhyun’s voice trails off with an air of hopelessness, and suddenly he doesn’t want to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. “She thinks all my time should be dedicated to Sehun and I…” He sighs in defeat. “I don’t want it to be.”

Chanyeol swallows past the lump in his throat. “Would you rather it be me?” he asks boldly and a little thickly, voice choked by the constriction of his windpipe. He appears collected on the outside, but inside he is scared of the truth, should it be something he doesn’t want to hear.

“I… I don’t know,” Baekhyun admits uneasily, sending Chanyeol’s heart rocketing off the cliff and smashing into a thousand pieces on the surface of the lake below. Half of him wants to storm away and leave Baekhyun in his dust, but the other half speaks more sense. _I don’t know_ is not a downright _no._ There’s still a chance.

“I feel like I hardly know anything about you.” Baekhyun sounds unreasonably guilty for someone speaking the truth, Chanyeol thinks lethargically. “All I know is your name, your face, that you live on the outskirts of the village by yourself,” Baekhyun begins to list, never breaking eye contact. He is confident for an omega, especially as they are usually brought up to turn away when an alpha stares them down – a sign of respect and submission. Baekhyun is looking directly at him, through him, _seeing_ him, and it is as unnerving as it is exhilarating. “You’re friends with Yoona and she sewed your vest a few weeks ago, and you’re the fastest runner in the pack.”

Simultaneously, Chanyeol’s mouth and eyebrows quirk. “The fastest runner?” he repeats in amusement, watching an autumn glow scatter across Baekhyun’s cheeks.

“It is just what people say,” he is quick to refute, but his body language says it all; he has turned away and started kicking at the floor, trying to draw attention to his foot instead of his face. Be that as it may, how could Chanyeol ever stray from those eyes when he’s lost in the labyrinth within them? “I thought that was why they gave you more patrols to run, because you can do them faster than anyone else. I didn’t think it would be the Head Alpha’s way of getting rid of you.”

Chanyeol wishes that were the case: that he had been promoted because of his skill rather than banished part-time. And then it occurs to him that here he is, beside Baekhyun, all alone with no one to disturb them and once again, they are talking about other people. If it is not Sehun, then it is Sehun’s father or Baekhyun’s mother – _anyone_ but themselves, and Chanyeol has had enough. If Baekhyun feels like he hardly knows him, he’s hellbent on changing it.

“How about we find somewhere to sit?” Chanyeol suggests, smiling into Baekhyun’s eyes with an ease unexpected. It is odd how well they have melded together, even in their limited time and restricted conversation. Silence is their friend, presence their partner, and words come and go like the pack members around them – some with fire and some as tranquil as a spring breeze. No longer will the words be foreign. “You can ask me all the questions you want, about whatever you like.”

Baekhyun hesitates. “I can ask anything?” He sounds disbelieving, smiling despite himself. “There must be some boundaries, Chanyeol.”

With a boyish grin, Chanyeol spreads his arms wide and shakes his head. “Believe me, Baekhyun, I’m as open as the sky on a cloudless day. I like to mean what I say.”

They move to sit against two opposing trees, backs lined up against the knobbly trunks and legs spread out before them. It is calm and simple, desirable, and Chanyeol awaits Baekhyun’s first question with great anticipation. He wants the omega to dig deep, to learn everything there is to learn about him; he wants to be known inside out, so he can’t help but laugh a little when the first question is “What’s your favourite colour?”

Still, Chanyeol responds with grace. “Green.” He smiles blindingly over at Baekhyun, watching him blush slightly. “It reminds me of the forest and things that grow, and I can see it in my wolf form.”

Baekhyun nods, musing, as he bends one leg at the knee and starts to comb through the fur on his shorts. “Favourite flower?” he asks quietly, probably afraid of being laughed at again. Instead, Chanyeol snorts.

“I know nothing of flowers.”

“You know they exist,” Baekhyun counters, a smirk tugging at his lips as he looks up at Chanyeol through his eyebrows. There’s playfulness there, cheek, and Chanyeol likes it.

Settling back further against the tree into a more relaxed position, Chanyeol gazes down the bridge of his nose at the one he desires. “Alright then,” he replies with feigned snootiness. “I would say buttercups but I think I stand on those by accident too much, so I’ll choose the foxglove instead.”

Baekhyun looks at him like he’s crazy. “Aren’t they poisonous?” he asks, failing to hold back a little laughter.

“Hey! Don’t rain on my favourite flower, Baekhyun!” Chanyeol pouts and wins the omega, who shakes his head in disbelief. The smile on his face is telling, however. Chanyeol just _knows_ he is the better alpha, the _best_ alpha, for Baekhyun. With all of his heart, he knows it.

“What is your favourite season?”

Chanyeol hums for a couple of seconds. “I think… summer. I like the heat, and you don’t freeze to death after you wash.”

Baekhyun nods, drawing on his thigh with his finger as if writing all this new information down so he can look at it later. “Favourite food?”

“Bear.”

“Favourite animal?”

“Bear.”

This time, Baekhyun looks at him like he has truly gone mad. “Bears?”

With a chuckle tinkering away in his words, Chanyeol manages to ask “What’s so outrageous about that?” And Baekhyun only laughs harder. It is the most beautiful sight – unadulterated happiness. That, paired with the handsome view of the omega before him, has Chanyeol finding himself in a struggle for breath. He knows Baekhyun is too good for him, on all levels in existence, but he wants to try. He wants to try and be enough for him, be the one who can rouse a laughter so delicate yet hearty from his lungs until his stomach hurts, until he has no choice but to hang onto him just to keep standing. Chanyeol needs to be enough. It’s too late to turn back now.

Baekhyun’s eyes gleam just as brightly as his smile before he has to rest his forehead on his palm. He props his elbow on his knee, shoulders shaking with laughter as he cries in uproar. “Don’t tell me it’s your favourite animal because it’s your favourite food as well?” And then his eyes are closed, scrunched tightly under the pressure of his swollen cheeks, the beam of his smile turning his face a light shade of pink and painting the most marvellous portrait Chanyeol has ever seen.

“Well, what was I supposed to say?!” Chanyeol cries back, bubbles popping in his stomach from bliss.    

“I don’t know!” cackles Baekhyun, rocking his head back against the tree trunk and wiping away tears. “Maybe a wolf?”

Chanyeol stops, only now coming to understand how much that would make sense. “Ah,” he belatedly realises, and Baekhyun laughs harder.   

“You are ridiculous,” the omega chimes, sitting forward and running a hand through his hair. He pauses for breath, but cannot hold it for his laughter. Chanyeol has tickled him much more than he intended to, not that it is a bad thing. “Okay.” Baekhyun sits cross-legged and plants his palms on his kneecaps, looking across at him with an uncontrolled smile and laughter juddering in his chest. “Night or day?”

“Night.”

“Hot or cold?”

“Hot.”

Baekhyun mindlessly prods at a bruise on his shin. “How old are you?” he asks more timidly, the change in his voice due to the questions becoming ever slightly more personal. Chanyeol is ready to bear it all.

“Twenty.”

“And, when is your birthday?”

Chanyeol smiles quietly, watching the tops of the pines swaying in the wind around a small patch of blue sky. “Late November, I think. I don’t really know the exact date.”

Baekhyun nods, bending his legs to rest his chin on his knee while he traces patterns in the ground. “I know you said I could ask anything, but if you don’t want to answer, you really don’t have to. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Chanyeol.” Chanyeol watches him closely, and when Baekhyun angles his eyes up to look at him, he seems surprised by the stare. He takes a deep breath, one that moves his whole body. “Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know, in all honesty.” Chanyeol shrugs nonchalantly, never having been very emotionally connected to that part of his life. Why be sad about something he never knew? He has never seen the point in conjuring up fruitless _what if_ s in his mind when every _what if_ is a _never will be_. He could sit and imagine having a different life all day if he wanted to, but that wouldn’t make it real. Nothing would make it real. “I just remember being under Bora’s care. You know, the one who everyone referred to as their grandmother?”

“I remember her.” Baekhyun smiles, looking across at him with a soft expression. “She walked around with a knobbly cane and all the wolf pups used to follow her.”

Smiling fondly, Chanyeol turns his eyes to the sky and wonders whether she is watching him right now, breaking the rules and talking to the one he desires. Bora will be with the ancestors. Perhaps she can campaign for him on his behalf, and persuade the others to choose him more resolutely come the next full moon.

“Was it her who found you?” Baekhyun wonders. “I assume you’re not from this pack originally?”

“No, I’m not. Maybe back when I was younger there were other packs around here. I don’t dream about having a mother or anything, but I have thought about why I was left in the forest. My mother could have been running away from something, or her pack might have been attacked and that’s why they’re not here anymore. I don’t know. Of course, I could have been an unwanted child and left out to die as well, but in all honesty, it doesn’t matter to me how I got here, because I’m here. At least I was left where someone would find me. A patrol runner picked me up, found me in a burrow of some kind. I was a baby so I was probably considered harmless, and then they brought me back here. Bora raised me.”

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun murmurs gently, then decides to change the subject. “When did you first see me? I mean, when did you first realise I existed?”

Grinning, Chanyeol thinks back to the image in his head of a young Baekhyun stood in the village centre, arms stretched out in the air as his mother ran string up and down his body to take his measurements. He was such a fidget, definitely a pouter, also incredibly cute, and although Chanyeol himself had only been six years old, for some reason he has always remembered it. His subconscious strikes again.

“You were around four. I was with my grandmother heading to the river for something and I passed you by the moonpost. Your mother was taking your measurements so she could sew you a new top.”

“I don’t remember that,” Baekhyun chuckles, tracing the veins on the top of his foot up his ankle and towards his knee. “My first memory of you is at Kyungsoo’s thirteenth birthday party. I remember that his mother had planned a big celebration because he was leaving childhood behind, and everyone was involved with singing and dancing, eating and drinking. I looked over at some point and saw you sat next to Bora on a log. She kept telling you that it was okay to leave her alone but you didn’t, and for some reason I found you very… intriguing, I suppose. After that, it was like I saw you everywhere. You were very dark and mysterious.”

“Dark and what-now?” Chanyeol repeats, face splitting in a grin.

“Hey! I was young and curious and, I don’t know,” Baekhyun laughs in embarrassment. “You never really spoke or had any friends and, yeah, just really mysterious.”

Chanyeol thinks back to all the times when his grandmother had told him that he ought to talk to the pack more. Then he thinks back to all that times when doing so had ended badly, with either him being embarrassed or the other being offended. “I’m not that great with people, I admit that. I’m quite happy in my own company most of the time.”

“So, you don’t want a mate?”

They both look at each other instantly and somehow the air becomes charged. “I never said that,” he refutes, eyeing Baekhyun intently as if to suggest just how much him not wanting a mate is not the case. Wanting Baekhyun is like having a hunger no food can kill. Not until he has Baekhyun himself. “I never really thought about it until I came of age. After that, I started to look at the unmated pack omegas more closely. None of them really interested me, though. Not even you. It wasn’t until I heard you singing when Seohyun’s firstborn became a human child that I took notice to you properly. You were spellbinding that day. Still are now.”

Shying away from the statement, Baekhyun returns to asking impersonal questions. He asks which form Chanyeol prefers to be in – human or wolf, and naturally, Chanyeol replies with both.

“Wolf form for running, human form for everything else,” he says, then tells of how he first met Yoona as a child. She is only four years older than him and helped in his upbringing alongside Bora.

“Sometimes I wonder why she hasn’t had pups yet,” Baekhyun thinks aloud. “She’s been with Minhun for over a year now. Usually mated pairs don’t wait that long.”

Shrugging, Chanyeol’s eyes home in on the elegant movements of Baekhyun’s hands as he hugs his arms around himself, the last chill of dawn sweeping through the forest. “Maybe she’s not ready. Though sometimes I think it’s because she wants to keep wearing tight-fitting clothes.”

“She always looks so glamorous, doesn’t she?” Baekhyun chuckles, curling up into a ball and placing his chin on his forearms. “Do you want pups?”

“I think I would like to. Maybe two boys and two girls.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows shoot halfway up his forehead. “You want four pups?”

Chanyeol smirks faintly. “It that a problem?”

That prompts Baekhyun to go completely red in the face.

“I would mate in human form as well,” Chanyeol continues, guilty as charged. He’s enjoying this a little too much. “It’s more intimate that way. I don’t understand how some couples do it as wolves when it’s all so regimented and clinical, but I can’t dismiss their preferences. Haven’t even tried it, of course.”

Baekhyun takes a deep breath and looks him square in the face. “You like me, don’t you?” he asks bluntly, and Chanyeol finds his smirk becoming a grin so wide that it’s painful.

“Is that not obvious already?”

Chuckling nervously, Baekhyun turns away to watch a rabbit hop through the trees on his right.

“Is there anything else you want to ask me?” Chanyeol wonders, rising from the ground and dusting off the back of his borrowed shorts. “I should probably be getting back soon.”

Still a little taken aback by the sudden confession, Baekhyun can only shake his head. Of course, there are greater things they need to know about each other, but for now, the barrel has been scraped bare.

“I’ll escort you back to the village,” Chanyeol tells him tersely, leaving no room for a debate before he hides himself behind a few trees and changes back into his wolf form. When he’s staring down his own muzzle, he wonders what it would be like to have Baekhyun peering up at him from under his nose, his fluffy, sandy wolf bared on his back beneath him in submission. Chanyeol would groom him, pleasure him, tickle him until they’re both filthy from rolling around in the dirt. He knows he said that mating in wolf forms is dispassionate, but with Baekhyun he could try to break his view and mould it into something else. Something pleasurable.

With his jaw, he picks up Baekhyun’s shorts and goes to hand them back to him, watching as his athletic human form pushes them back inside his sack and slings it over his shoulder.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun calls, just as Chanyeol starts to pad away. “The ancestors chose you for me and I... I just want you to know that I choose you too.”

A cold flush combs through his fur at the words, and then he’s nuzzling into Baekhyun’s palm, licking a fat stripe up his wrist to his elbow and headbutting him in the hip. Part of him hates how Baekhyun only chose to say that when he cannot reply, cannot touch him or even kiss him, but another part of him understands. There is little chance of a colourful rejection when Chanyeol is not free to speak his mind, not that he would ever reject Baekhyun anyway.

They walk back to the village together, Baekhyun’s thigh continuously brushing against Chanyeol’s shoulder. He sets a low pace so that Baekhyun can keep up, and when it comes to parting ways, they split off at the last second before they can be seen, the village welcoming them back in slits through the trees.

Chanyeol persists, though. He finds ways of leaving Baekhyun gifts, signing them with a buttercup or a daisy so Baekhyun knows who they’re from. Most times, he gives him interesting things he finds in the forest: stones shaped like hearts, different kinds of berries that he takes the time to personally pick, the furs of animals he hunts to feed himself. As the omegas sit in the village centre all day, it is ridiculously easy to sneak into Baekhyun’s home and leave the presents on his pillow. There is no real way for him to see Baekhyun’s reactions to them, but the smiles Baekhyun briefly flashes him whenever he can spare a moment are enough to keep him satisfied. So long as he doesn’t start glaring, Chanyeol believes he is in the clear to carry on doing as he’s doing.

He is on patrol one morning when he happens across a bear by the river bank. It is pacing through the shallows, paws submerged in water as its eyes spy out salmon in the current. Chanyeol’s first instinct is to kill it. Bears are his favourite type of meat, after all, and its pelt is large and thick – perfect for winter. His second instinct hits him a moment later, when he decides that he’ll kill it for the omegas. For one omega in particular.

Wolves usually hunt in packs, but as something of an outcast Chanyeol has learned how to manage on his own the hard way. He has over a hundred bear killings to his name and knows the routine rather well by now, easing into it with hardly any thought at all. His wolf and the bear are roughly the same size, though in this case he appears to come out on top in terms of muscle. He hides in the treeline as the bear thrusts his paws down in the water, chasing after a fish that manages to slip from between his claws at the last moment. After a few more deep and steady breaths, Chanyeol pounces.

 

His jaw aches with the weight of the lifeless body. The bear has more muscle on his bones than Chanyeol gave him credit for, and although that means more food, it also means it’s more laborious to drag back to the village. He is exhausted by the time he has returned, the long hours of running his patrol and then towing a corpse have robbed him of almost all his energy. The reaction makes it worth it, though, the delight on the omegas’ faces breathing new air into his lungs. All but one of them are pleased, Baekshi glaring at him as if his very presence is an insult; he expected nothing less from her. Hope always bleeds into disappointment anyway.

Baekhyun looks up from his weaving, hands clenching in the furs of his badger blanket as he takes in the spectacle before him. Chanyeol gently lowers the bear to the ground and releases it from between his teeth, something like excitement lighting up in Baekhyun’s expression as he does so. With Baekhyun blatantly staring at him, lips parted in awe, Chanyeol has to fight himself to stay in line. One glance at his desired omega and Baekshi will spark into a forest fire. He can tell that she is waiting for him to slip, for him to falter and glance for a moment too long, move over a little too close, say something unabashedly too familiar. She wants him out of the way and out of the pack, but Chanyeol refuses to give her the satisfaction.

In the end, he steals a fleeting glimpse of Baekhyun before he heads home, doing his best to appear indifferent. There, resting on his couch, is a pile of his own clothes that were not there this morning. They are freshly washed and dried, folded neatly in precise squares, and signed with a buttercup that lies modestly on the top of his favourite bearskin shorts. A smile spreads easily across his lips as he takes the wild flower in his hand, fingertips tingling over where Baekhyun’s must have been when he plucked it. Their affection for one another is undeniable. Chanyeol hopes that the ancestors can see that.

The pack eats his bear for supper, sharing it out amongst themselves along with steamed vegetables and salads. Chanyeol doesn’t join them, only sees them in passing as he leaves for his evening patrol, but he still manages to catch Baekhyun’s eye. It’s as though they are constantly looking for each other, both in a crowd and in an abandoned place, forever drawn together like the sun to the sky. He can feel their bond gradually growing stronger with each moment they spend in each other’s presence. Every word has another thread entwining around their souls, every glance another rope. Chanyeol’s heart has started to respond, as though it is talking in its own wordless language. It aches and throbs when he has to leave Baekhyun behind, and hastens and thumps when they grow nearer. When he sees Baekhyun displeased, it feels as though it is being ripped into two. When Baekhyun is happy, it feels as light and as bubbly as air in water, so much so that it could burst at any moment. It is like the omega is playing with him, and it just so happens to be Chanyeol’s favourite game.

On his patrol the next morning, another wolf comes barrelling past him heading in the opposite direction. From the large cheekbones and thick brown fur, Chanyeol guesses that it’s Sehun. He slows for a moment, wondering what he’s doing and pondering if he should follow. Seeing Oh Sehun in the woods is not a regular occurrence. As an alpha that does not run patrols and rarely even hunts, he has no need to be out in these parts – especially not this early in the morning, either. It leads Chanyeol to consider the safety of the pack, whether there may be a foreign wolf ambling around in their territory uninvited, whether another pack is on the move, settling close to their borders. Having just patrolled all there is to see up the eastern bank of the river and the southern faces of the mountains, however, Chanyeol knows full well that their lands are clear.

He carries on and tries not to let it consume him, running south with the river and coming to a stop on his cliff. Sprawling himself out on the warm dirt beneath him, he lazes under the sun until it’s high in the sky, savouring a moment of peace before he has to return to the hostility of his supposed home. Groaning, he has to drag himself to his paws. 

The sight that meets him back in the village has him blanching. If he were in his human form, Chanyeol is sure he might be heaving, perhaps even fainting or something similar of the sort. It seems as though Sehun made it back before he did, prize in tow. The body of another dead bear, laid just shy of Baekhyun’s feet, is no doubt a direct retaliation to what he hunted yesterday. It would have them standing as equals in any other case, but the bodies of three cubs, throats all mangled with teeth marks and scratches, are intended to push Sehun out into the winning position.

Oh Sehun, a man competing for the attention of an omega who may one day come to bear his pups, has just slain innocent children before their own mother as easily as picking the wild flowers he doesn’t care about.

Impulsively, a low and dangerous growl rolls off Chanyeol’s tongue, deep in pitch but loud enough to be heard by all those in the village centre. Baekshi looks smug, Baekhyun, sick, and Sehun turns around to face him, muzzle pulled back to bear his sharp canines in warning. Chanyeol is revolted.

There’s a cold feeling in his chest as he starts to head back to his hut. He feels sick and dizzy, and consequently suffers a slower transition than usual, one that leaves him debilitated on the ground from pain. His human lungs burn for air while he can taste blood in his mouth, the image of the bear cubs staining his mind, persistent and unmissable. Just thinking of how Sehun must have mauled them, taken their necks into his mouth and thrashed them around until all vital lifelines were severed, causes him to gag. Chanyeol knew Sehun was entitled, believing that everything belongs to him by some divine right, but he had no idea just how sadistic he was. Chanyeol will quite willingly die before he sees Baekhyun in the arms of such a man.

He runs his evening patrol earlier that night, wanting to get out of the village as soon as possible. In the twilight, his eyes pick up red streaks on the ground, and Chanyeol can only hope that Sehun gave the bears a quick end. To his disgust, he returns to the pack eating the fruits of a child’s death, watching as they share out the meat in large quantities, the Head Alpha even getting a whole leg from a cub to chew on. The only thing that reinstills his faith in those he lives with is when he sees Yoona, her mate Minhun, and Baekhyun turning the meat away when it is offered to them. Seohyun soon follows suit after seeing others doing as such, and eventually most mothers and children deny themselves the right to eat for the evening.

After changing in his hut, Chanyeol takes a seat on the river bank and debates whether he should join the pack. Although some are acting out against Sehun’s acts of violence, he still cannot bear to think himself a part of them, a member of a people who eat children for dinner. How can they think that a wolf pup is any different from a bear cub? They wouldn’t eat their neighbour’s children, surely. Though that is where the problem lies. The alphas are unrelatable, unagreeable, and they do not empathise; any omegas malleable and gullible enough all copy their tracks, unwittingly training their children to also do the same. Some people in the pack would have it widely accepted that wolves are superior beings, Sehun and his father especially.

Once Chanyeol is certain that the dining is over, he dares to slink into the outskirts of the pack meal, watching Baekhyun from across the cooking fire where the flames dance across his skin. Warring tendrils of light scatter in the omega’s eyes, failing to brighten the glum expression that mars his otherwise handsome face. He’s not eating, to Chanyeol’s relief, even when offered a plate of carrots by his mother. He sits still in protest, chin resting in the palm of his hand, as his smouldering eyes gaze into a nothing surrounded by suffocating buzzing chatter.

In dregs, the pack members eventually begin to retire for the night. Once Chanyeol has seen Baekhyun leave, he too decides that it’s no longer worth staying. In truth, if Baekhyun were never a member of this pack at all, Chanyeol doesn’t think he would even be here; he would have no reason to stay. And while he admits that it is nice to belong somewhere, have somewhere to come back to that has some semblance of home after a run, there is no doubt in his mind that he would rather live a life of solitude than be here. If Baekhyun becomes mated to Oh Sehun, Chanyeol can guarantee that he will leave before first light the same morning. With his grandmother gone, there is nothing left for him here.

“Chanyeol, I want to speak with you.”

The voice alone brings Chanyeol to a stop, and he turns slowly to face Oh Sehun in the flesh, a scowl on his face that’s so regular it’s starting to be considered ordinary.

“Okay,” Chanyeol grunts, giving nothing away. He puts up a front almost instantly, wanting to guard himself from that which seeks to take his happiness from under his feet.

Sehun narrows his eyes. “What was that show you put on this morning?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you growled,” Sehun snarls, marching up to his face as if he’s about to spit in it, “like you have some kind of authority over me.”

Defensive, Chanyeol cannot help but get riled up. If no one else is going to put Sehun in his place, he will. “I can’t believe you are coming after me for growling at the sight of dead children.”

“ _Dead children?”_ Sehun mocks. “You mean ‘food’.”

“See, that’s just the problem. You’re a senseless prick, Sehun.” Chanyeol folds his arms just as Sehun shoves him on the shoulder, knocking him back several steps. Heat crawls up the back of Chanyeol’s neck and into his ears, but he refuses to back down. He lets Sehun stride up to him again, resisting fear and holding his ground. He will not be intimidated by a man with no tact.

“You think you’re better than everyone else, Chanyeol. I see straight through you. You’re moody and you sulk about alone, like you’re somehow above the rest of us because you claim to be oh-so detached.”

“Are you really coming to me and prattling on about superiority? You killed _children,_ Sehun. Why can’t you see that? And why do you want to supress my opinion? Are you afraid of what I think? Are you afraid others will follow me, like they did at supper? Is your hold over this pack that fragile?”

There’s a sudden grip by his collarbone and Chanyeol’s weight tips forward, the tear in his vest that Yoona sewed shut ripping open to display his ribcage once again. Sehun has taken him by the scruff of his neck, as though he has every right to touch and defile Chanyeol’s body.

“Are you forgetting that you killed a bear too?”

“Not a child—”

“No. But a parent. You’ve left cubs out on their own in the wilderness. They’ll be killed by predators if they don’t starve first. At least I killed them quickly, so don’t come preaching to me about who’s morally sound, Chanyeol. What makes you any better?”

Chanyeol waters and feeds the weed Sehun plants in his mind. Until now, he hasn’t considered the possibility of him orphaning bear cubs. He has always gone for the bears who were alone, feeding themselves by the river or snoozing in the comfort of their private caves. At least he never sought out to kill one specifically because it had offspring, though. With that, he realises Sehun is twisting his actions and turning them against him, using them as his own weapons to try and control his mind, just like he wants to control everybody else’s with his delusions of power.

“Is this about Baekhyun?” Chanyeol grunts out through his gritted teeth, body as still as stone even though Sehun tries to jostle him around in his fist. The future Head Alpha is several inches shorter than he is, which boosts Chanyeol’s confidence a little. Sehun cannot win and control everything.

The Head Alpha’s son snorts abrasively. “Why would it be about Baekhyun?” he asks with a dark laugh. “Whether that omega is going to be my mate or not isn’t even up for debate, Chanyeol.”

“You think Baekhyun will want to be your mate after today?” Chanyeol sneers back at him, bending his neck to get right in Sehun’s face. “You think he’s going to want to bear your children after you’ve just shown that you don’t care about killing them?”

“He’ll be my mate whether he wants to be or not.” Sehun lets him go with a shove, eyes menacing and dripping with malice, a triumphant smirk on his face as if he believes he has won already. In Chanyeol’s mind, they have only just gotten started.

“Do you really think the ancestors are going to choose you?”

Sehun cackles manically, dawdling about on the spot for a moment to try and compose himself as he chuckles out, “Do you really think I give a shit about what the ancestors say?” He runs a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, laughing to himself while shaking his head.

“People seemed to be accepting of their decisions when they agreed with what they wanted. You’re only discrediting them now because they didn’t choose you.”

“I trust the words of the living over the words of the dead,” Sehun announces carelessly, shrugging with a giant smile on his face. “Some dead sods from way-back-when don’t get to decide my future, Chanyeol.”

“Have you ever considered that, maybe, the rule where we can’t talk to unmated omegas was put in place because of alphas like you?”

“Honestly, Chanyeol, I don’t really care.” He sobers up, tone serious and dull. “Just be warned. On the next full moon, Baekhyun will be mine no matter who the ancestors pick. If you’re awkward about it, my father will deal with you, but only if I don’t get to you first.”

After that statement, Sehun leaves. Or, he retreats. However aloof he appears to be, Chanyeol is sure that there is worry buried somewhere deep within him. It would make sense, he supposes. Why risk the humiliation of losing an argument when you can just walk away halfway through?

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbetad.  
> all the chapters i have are now uploaded and i will reply to comments soon. can't promise that an update will be soon though~ i may choose to discontinue this fic here and only continue it on aff, i haven't decided yet~

 

“What Sehun did makes me sick to my stomach,” Yoona says while Chanyeol is busy stuffing the mattress of his bed. Minhun also lends a hand. Chanyeol is tired, painfully so, but he doesn’t have the luxury of time. He envies the mated couple in his presence. They have the freedom to do as they please whereas Chanyeol feels bound to the desires of their Head Alpha. Refusing him, betraying him or ignoring him would have Chanyeol sent packing for the hills, alone with an uncertain fate – not that the fate he blindly chases here is any clearer.

Minhun and a couple of the other alphas went on their trip into the mountains a few days ago. They rounded up a total of fifty goats, Minhun claimed, and just sheared all but ten, which they brought back to the village for food. With the wool then washed and dried, it was sectioned off to different wolves in the pack. Some have spun it into yarn, others only want the skins, and those who are in dire need of a new spread to sleep on, like Chanyeol, are using it as stuffing.

“How can someone just go out and…” Yoona looks incredulous, “and kill innocent bear cubs! I really don’t understand it!”

“He feels threatened,” Minhun tells as he layers a bearskin over the goat cushioning. Chanyeol stills at that, looking up at him from across his bed with his eyebrows drawn. Minhun meets his eyes. “He sees you as competition, Chanyeol. Why else would he seek to outdo you?”

“That’s a good point,” Yoona pipes up, crossing the room to stand by her mate. It’s easy, how she places a comforting hand between Minhun’s shoulder blades as if there’s nowhere else her hand is supposed to be. Even just looking at Baekhyun from across the village centre is dangerous for Chanyeol, more so with Baekshi everywhere he turns. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was stood outside his doorway, listening in to their conversation just to try and catch him out. One wrong expression on his part could give her enough ammunition to obliterate his life.

“But I think there are more important things to discuss than all this,” Yoona then declares with a cunning simper. She rolls her head in Chanyeol’s direction, expression disturbingly sweet, and asks, “How’s the otter hunt going, Chanyeol?”

It breaks the tension in an instant, a smile cracking the weathered stone of Chanyeol’s frown. Trust Yoona to know exactly what to say.

By the time they’ve finished the bed, the pack supper has just begun down by the moonpost. Minhun and Yoona ask him if he’ll join them, but Chanyeol politely declines.

“I’ll eat on patrol,” he reasons, shrugging with a quiet smile.

“Alright then.” Yoona rubs his arm affectionately. “Don’t stay out too late now,” she then teases, throwing a wink over her shoulder as she leaves Chanyeol’s hut with her mate by her side.

They look good together, he thinks. They’re well-matched and get along well. Both enjoy doing their own independent activities during the day and then recounting them animatedly to each other over a meal in the evening. Chanyeol knows that their life can’t really be as perfect or as easy as it appears on the outside, but it sure does look like a breeze. Some people, he supposes, are just fortunate enough to have their lives settle perfectly into place. Others, like himself, have to work at it, and although Chanyeol will never give up the fight, he cannot deny that he’s tired of sprinting after an end that keeps getting further and further away.

His home feels awfully empty now that Yoona and Minhun have left, or abandoned, him in his own company. Arguably, his own is the most toxic company to be stranded with. He has a bad habit of thinking too much in an attempt to fill in the blank silences when he has nothing else to focus on, other than his own personal failures and embarrassments. He will dwell over the insignificant and cry over the unworthy, and sometimes, not even talking himself out of the problem helps. When it is just him inside his mud walls and under his thatched roof, he feels like the loneliest man in the world.

The floor is slightly hairy under his hands and knees when he gets down to transition, lint from the goat wool having settled like snow. The word _wolf_ pounds in his head as he repeats it, closing his eyes just after he watches his hands blacken and swell into paws. Goosebumps course down his spine and prickle his fur until it’s stood upright, a cool wash then laying it down to thickly coat his body. He finds himself in pain afterwards, pain that he decides to ignore as he shakes his head and gives his tail a sharp wag, bowing and stretching to get movement into his joints before he lopes from his hut.

He runs at a slower pace than usual, his head bobbing and legs growing clumsy after only covering a quarter of his route. As the sky darkens, he stops to drink from the river and chooses to walk the rest of the way back to the village. There is peace in the solitude. Surrounded by no one, he feels less left out; takes comfort in the idea that everyone else is just as alone as he is.

The wind whispers in the trees, scattering pine needles across his path that nick at the soft pads of his paws. Through the branches above him, he can see the crescent moon in all its grandeur. It is remarkably bright for this time in the month, gleaming like the ghost of a sun that has long since burned itself out of existence, its essence still travelling miles across the galaxy in one long farewell. Or maybe everything surrounding it has lost its light, creating the illusion that the moon itself is more vivid. Perhaps the world has been drained of all vibrant colours and the life which makes it pulse.

The past few weeks seem to have taken as much a toll on Chanyeol as they have done on his outlook. It seems like so long ago when Baekhyun stood beneath the moonpost wearing his white mating garb, hoping for the right alpha to be chosen and take him into bed to promise him a lifetime. It also feels like yesterday. The pain in Chanyeol’s heart is present and real, regrettably endless, and the next full moon will decide whether it stays with him for life or leaves him in bliss. It is hard to decide which he would prefer, in all honesty. To forget these feelings would hurt just as much as keeping them.

With the sky so alive, surely the ancestors are watching him. He doesn’t recall any of them ever being blind, though that doesn’t mean they won’t turn away and blame ignorance. He is better. He _will_ be better. Choosing him is only fair. If they claim Sehun as Baekhyun’s mate, Chanyeol will demand a thorough and detailed rationale and shall back down for nothing less.

As soon as Chanyeol begins to hear the rush of the waterfall in the distance, he becomes sombre with the knowledge that he is almost home. With such a glorious starlit ceiling, he considers sleeping amidst the forest tonight on a bed of grass, a mossy pillow. Resting his head down somewhere where he cannot hear the laughter or enthusiastic chatter of the pack members might make him feel more at ease, and for once, he may just sleep soundly. To not feel constantly left out would be a miracle in and of itself.

There is someone stood on the cliff overhang when he arrives. Framed by the galactic horizon is a slender, sculpted body, where the shadows take refuge in the indents of every muscle and bone, moondust spritzed across sleek plains of unblemished skin. What strikes Chanyeol is that this person is completely naked, their body aglow with the moon and stars with what Chanyeol guesses would be a bluish tinge if he himself were looking out of human eyes. Nevertheless, the shape of their body is splendent in its own right: wide shoulders, thick arms and thighs, and even a shapely behind that Chanyeol’s eyes admittedly linger on. He feels utterly guilty for staring so obviously, but also finds that he cannot bear to look away. Not even when Baekhyun turns to stare him in the face, shameless and unafraid.

To Chanyeol’s relief, the omega holds his cloth sack in front of his intimates, and also doesn’t seem to be too bothered by where Chanyeol is looking. “I brought clothes,” is all he says, opening the sack at the top to dig out a pair of shorts, then throwing them gently to the ground beneath Chanyeol’s muzzle. The latter’s eyes home in on the contours of Baekhyun’s chest, tracing the hollow under his ribs down past the light feathering of hair beneath his navel. What’s further beyond that is left to the imagination, which unfortunately makes Chanyeol’s mind wanton with his own, only slightly unwelcome images.

He begins to transition as best as he can, his muscles so tense from both stress and over-exertion that everything seems to get locked up, as though his human form is the water rushing toward a dam. It all backs up – pathways clogged, current stumbled, rhythm buffered – until, finally, there is so much pressure that the man breaks through and pushes the wolf aside. With a pained sigh, Chanyeol remains on the floor for a moment just to breathe and get his bearings back, then sets his sights on Baekhyun’s spare shorts. He dresses deftly with his back turned, though his ears still sizzle; as soon as he looks around, the shorts now resting nicely on his hips, Baekhyun quickly takes interest in the trees.

“What are you doing out so late?” Chanyeol wonders, taking in Baekhyun to the fullest so he can remember this moment for the rest of his life: Baekhyun so beautiful in the half-light of dusk. The different colours of the sky are chasing each other across his skin, lilacs scampering after the pinks of the dying sun and navys sneaking in the markings of golden yellows. He is now dressed as well, wearing an almost identical pair of shorts, perhaps on purpose.

“I wanted a walk.”

Chanyeol isn’t sure whether he believes that or not. Baekhyun has been walking an awful lot lately.

“I only transitioned a few moments ago,” Baekhyun continues, treading closer to him with a soft smile. “From here, I can still hear the village in my wolf form, so I changed. Didn’t want to hear them.”

Ever so slightly, Chanyeol’s eyes narrow, latching onto the faint twitch of Baekhyun’s mouth. A giveaway.

“Or maybe I just came out here in the hopes of running into you again,” the omega lets out all in one breath, now flustered and fidgety. It has Chanyeol’s stomach swooping. “I thought maybe you could ask me questions this time, if you want to.”

There is a welcome warmth in Chanyeol’s chest and it feels so good, so wonderful to know that someone wants to be with him, even if only for a conversation. “I want to,” he doesn’t hesitate to reply, following Baekhyun’s subsequent suggestion of finding somewhere to sit.

They nestle themselves down opposite each other again, though Chanyeol regrets not being closer. With each meeting, they seem to become more affectionate with one another, evolving into a deeper form of what laid there before. Following such a course would mean they should probably be sat on top of each other by now, according to Chanyeol’s standards, with him cradling Baekhyun in his arms and Baekhyun stroking through his hair. But Chanyeol refuses to rush everything. He won’t push him, and although the omega might see that as him being unwilling, Chanyeol knows that Baekhyun is too bold to be deterred; he’ll have sussed that Chanyeol has handed him the reins. Do with them what he will, Chanyeol will only ever comply.

“These shorts are bigger,” Chanyeol remarks, now coming to realise that what he wears isn’t digging into his hips or squeezing something else to the point of nausea. He runs his fingertips under hem to feel the space between the hide and his skin that wasn’t there before, contemplating the cause. Ahead, Baekhyun smiles.

“You’re quite observant for an alpha,” he says faintly, the smile in his eyes.

Out of confusion, Chanyeol hazards a smile back, wondering if there’s something he’s missed that he ought not to have missed, even though Baekhyun claims he is observant. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well,” Baekhyun laughs a little lifelessly, dropping his eyes and bending one leg at the knee where he starts to poke at a bruise. “My mother always brought me up to think that alphas only care about killing, fighting and fucking. She said they always miss the little things and never appreciate them when they don’t.”

Chanyeol winces. That definitely sounds like Baekshi. Why would anyone willingly pass toxicity onto their child, even unwittingly? Chanyeol is glad that he is has the chance to prove Baekhyun otherwise. Ever since the beginning of time, there have been alphas who are as kind and compassionate as him. His grandmother told him so. Nevertheless, Chanyeol’s question isn’t entirely answered.

“So, the shorts?”

Baekhyun’s face lights up, as if remembering himself.

“Right,” he chuckles, cheeks a little rosier than before, visible even through the darkening skies.

Inexplicably, Baekhyun seems to emanate his own light, a sacred one that he saves for Chanyeol and Chanyeol alone.

“I made them for you, so that you had something to wear that fitted properly. You know, for next time. Or, _this_ time, now. And then the times after this if you want.”

Enamoured, Chanyeol finds himself fighting through goosebumps and a hot flush. He starts to wonder when Baekhyun made them, and where. He shouldn’t like the idea of Baekhyun putting himself at risk, but when faced with the prospect that Baekhyun made him these shorts without his mother’s consent or permission, openly rebelling even if he was hiding, makes Chanyeol melt on the inside.

“Thank you,” he says in earnest.

Baekhyun smiles to one side. “You’re welcome.”

Chanyeol rests his head back against the trunk of the tree he’s leaning on and ponders his questions. He can ask Baekhyun anything he wants, anything at all, but what? What should he prioritise? What would be a step too far? There’s only one thing he knows for sure, and that is he won’t ask Baekhyun anything about Sehun. Chanyeol has had enough of hearing the other alpha’s name, seeing the other alpha’s face and listening to the other alpha’s voice. Though it is impossible, Chanyeol wants rid of Sehun for good, yet the most he can do at this point – and at all points, really – is ignore his existence. At the same time, Chanyeol doesn’t want to ask Baekhyun anything that he thinks Sehun might ask if he were in this situation, and because his own mind is repeatedly tracing back to the image of Baekhyun naked, out pops the unexpected.

“Did you look when I was changing?”

Baekhyun’s eyes bulge in surprise, his whole body tensing at the question.

“And be honest.” Chanyeol can only grin. He has his answer already. Why else would Baekhyun be so startled unless he’s been caught out?

“Um… A little, maybe,” he admits with a wobbly voice, doing his best to bow his head and appear inconspicuous at the same time. However, no matter what Baekhyun does, Chanyeol’s undivided attention will always be rewarded to him. There’s no getting away from his eagle eyes any longer. Not now his heart is so strongly invested. He notices Baekhyun’s every movement and reaction, not missing a trick, and somehow Baekhyun has gotten easier to read.

Biting his lip to hold back his impish grin in an attempt to look like he’s not enjoying this too much, Chanyeol goes on, just to torment Baekhyun a little longer. “How much did you see?”

“Chanyeol!”

The outburst makes him cackle, his palm slapping against his knee as he sways a little on his centre of balance.

“This isn’t what I meant by questions!” Baekhyun objects further, puffing out his lower lip. “Besides, you looked at me!”

Chanyeol’s keen eyes stare him down, inviting him for a fight. Maybe imagining him naked at the same time. “You _wanted_ me to look at you.”

“Hey!” Baekhyun cries, sitting up straight and crossing his legs like an infant. He points a finger at Chanyeol as if he were a parent scolding a child, yet the reprimand completely gets lost somewhere between his endearing pout and adorably creased brow. “You’re the one who snuck up on me!”

“How much did you see?” Chanyeol presses, and Baekhyun lets his pointing finger down with a huff. The omega’s eyes look him up and down, positively raking over his bare chest and clothed hips as if he’s picturing what’s underneath them. It wouldn’t be the first time the omega has looked hungrily at his body, only this time they’re in private and the repercussions are plentiful.

“I saw enough. Anyway, I asked you nice questions. Please return the courtesy.”

Though the power an alpha has over an omega is stronger than many great forces, the power an omega has over an alpha is unmatched. Chanyeol rather likes Baekhyun bossing him about. There is something exotically alluring about him when he is dominant and in charge, so Chanyeol appeases him.

“What’s your favourite flower?” he asks politely, shifting slightly to try and find a more comfortable position against the curves of the tree.

Baekhyun seems to sigh with relief, revealing just how tense he was by how much he relaxes against the tree of his own. “As of late, it’s been a buttercup.” He says it casually, but the words are so heavy that they weigh down on Chanyeol’s chest, anchoring him to the place where people can be sane and loved and happy all at once. Still, that seems like a question Sehun would ask – something simple and easy, not requiring much thought. In Sehun’s mind, he would have flowers associated with girls and girls associated with omegas, and the stereotype has Chanyeol’s muscles clenching without his knowing. There would be no genuine care behind the question if Sehun were to ask it, only reinforcement that would bolster his closed views on the world. Thus, Chanyeol tries to think outside the lines.

“Who’s your favourite alpha?”

“My father,” Baekhyun replies, playing with his fingers in his lap, legs still crossed neatly in front of him.

This is the first time they have ever spoken of Baekhyun’s father together. It is the first time Chanyeol has spoken of him at all. The pack members never speak of their deceased loved ones, for they see it as more of moving on instead of dying; they still live, omniscient with the ancestors, gone in all but soul and spirt.

Baekshi never spoke of her husband passing, nor did she publicly mourn him. Though, Chanyeol remembers her hiding in her hut for a month after it happened. No one comforted her. There was no funeral or ceremony held, for her mate was not really gone in everyone else’s minds. The body of Baekhyun’s father was simply burned, his soul serenely released toward the stars.

After all, why grieve for someone who isn’t dead?

“Do you miss him?” Chanyeol asks gently, afraid of poking at an unhealed wound.

“Sometimes. He was a good dad.” Baekhyun smiles fondly, talking with a wistful tone that tugs at Chanyeol’s heartstrings as if he were playing a lament, each sharp pinch a different note in the melody. “And he never treated me differently because of what I was. He didn’t raise me to think that all I could do was cook and clean, or make clothes and sing songs. He didn’t raise me to be soft – not that there’s anything wrong with being soft, it’s just… I was a boy and I wanted to be strong and brave. I didn’t want to have to rely on anyone else just to live or breathe. Exist. Being an omega only means I have a different kind of bravery and a different kind of strength. It doesn’t mean I have to be weak or naïve or helpless, and I’m grateful to him for showing me that. Not many people understand it.”

With woe in his chest, Chanyeol’s eyes take in the image of Baekhyun grieving for his father. He wonders whether he was ever given the chance to mourn at the time, or whether he kept it all inside until it festered and began to eat at him, sucked the life and joy from his bones until all that was left was vacant and dormant. With Baekshi as self-absorbed as she is, Chanyeol can imagine her acting like Baekhyun didn’t have the right to be distraught, like she was the only one who ought to be suffering.

“I know he still lives, but sometimes I wish I could have him hug me. Just one more hug, and then I would be happy,” Baekhyun chuckles nasally, flashing Chanyeol his glistening eyes. “And the hug would last for ten years.”

Chanyeol breaks out in a grin so wide that his cheeks push up into his eyes, combining the moisture he didn’t know was there into tears that manage to fall. “Sounds about right,” he agrees with a thoughtful nod and a comforting smile.

“My favourite omega is Kyungsoo, of course,” Baekhyun goes on, perhaps keen to change the subject. “He is the sweetest thing, really. So shy and quiet. He’s got a green thumb too, can make just about anything grow in any soil. Everything I plant has a tendency to die.”

“Me too,” Chanyeol grins sheepishly, feeling his heart thump with warmth. “I once tried to grow carrots. Yoona even set everything up for me and somehow I still managed to kill them all before they grew. I was left with carrots the sizes of my fingernails.”

“I’m sure Kyungsoo would be generous to us,” Baekhyun chuckles mischievously. “Either that or we can just live off meat for the rest of our lives.”

 _Us. We._ Chanyeol doesn’t think his heart has ever thundered so loud, not even during the last full moon. He watches Baekhyun watching the stars, the luminescent glow softly lighting his skin and making it seem like Chanyeol has attracted the company of an angel. How glorious it would be to wake up to Baekhyun lying beside him every morning, hair a mess of swirls and sleep in his eyes, mouth puffing hot air onto the pillow, fur slightly damp with drool. The squirming form of their newborn between them.

“How many pups do you want?”

Baekhyun looks at him, a calm smile washing over his face as the air turns tranquil. “Up until recently, I hadn’t really thought about it. Now I want two boys and two girls.”

The pull is so strong that Chanyeol can feel it tearing his chest open. Baekhyun looks good enough to eat, but Chanyeol is not the one in control. He’ll wait, even if it’ll kill him. Baekhyun wants to have children with him, and that should sate him for now.

“What is… your favourite body part?”

Baekhyun glares at him flatly. “Chanyeol, what on earth are these questions? Seriously?”

Chanyeol’s grin is all teeth and no bite. “I want to know! Come on, what is your favourite body part on you?”

With a huff, Baekhyun answers, “Alright, well, I like my shoulders. They’re wide and sturdy and… good for carrying things on.”

“Okay, now what body part of mine do you like the best?” Chanyeol knows he’s pushing it, but Baekhyun makes him giddy and he can’t help but tease.

“Listen,” Baekhyun points at him again, involuntarily adorable, “I am only going to answer this question if you say what you like best about me in return.”

Chanyeol loves a bargain. “Would it be corny if I say I like everything?”

Baekhyun’s schooled expression falters for a moment, then he’s failing to supress a shy smile. An eyebrow raises and Baekhyun’s eyes home in on Chanyeol’s hips. “Would it be inappropriate to say I like your bum?”

They share a look that harbours both mirth and a hint of unanticipated lust, but Chanyeol knows he cannot remain in Baekhyun’s eyes for long. Dwell there, and he won’t be able to keep himself from commandeering the reins. An alpha’s rut is a rather fearsome thing.

“What’s your favourite song to sing?”

After a moment of plain staring, Baekhyun reluctantly leaves the traces of desire behind. “ _The Welcome._ It’s such a beautiful song, and I wish we still spoke that old language. Imagine how nice we would all sound if we did. I really can’t wait to sing it when my own child first changes. And for Kyungsoo’s children, Seulgi’s children, even Sehun’s children if he ever…” The way his voice cuts off makes it seem like Sehun’s name slipped out by accident. For his name to be in Baekhyun’s mind at all at a time like this, when they are getting to know each other in sacred and scarce privacy, has Chanyeol’s nerves irked. He has to stop himself from sneering, lest Baekhyun think he’s upset.

When Baekhyun next speaks, his voice is smaller than before, with the rest of him shrinking to match. There is fear in the way he wrings his hands, in the way he watches the sky and brings his knees up to his chest. If there is fear, the ancestors must know that Sehun cannot be considered as a potential mate. Anyone but heartless, arrogant and undeserving Sehun.

“What he did, with the bears. I felt so awful,” Baekhyun admits lowly, intently watching his hands and never really meeting Chanyeol’s eyes. “Even if we were starving and dying I wouldn’t agree with it. Not to save my own life, or even the life of my child. I didn’t realise how cold-hearted he was until then. Before, I only knew that he was trying to mate me and there was no way I could get out of it. I thought he was just serious. Old-fashioned, maybe. At the very beginning, I even thought he might just be shy.” He looks at Chanyeol apologetically, as if regretting ever thinking such an impossibility. “Then I wondered if he was just tired from being busy all the time. Then, timid in a standoffish kind of way. I thought that, maybe if we became mates, he might open up to me and magically become a different person. Be kinder and happier, more compassionate and thoughtful, instead of just ordering Boah to pick me some flowers for him.”

He laughs emptily, the sound hollow and haunting. “I sound so stupid, don’t I? But I suppose, to hope that there is good in everyone _is_ stupid. I remember telling my mum that I didn’t think Sehun would be a good mate for me. You should have seen her face; it was scandalised, like it was my fault that Sehun had a shit personality. But she never relented, and Sehun hasn’t stopped. I thought that I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life, and then you came and sat next to me by the river and started saying that you’d rather I wash your clothes instead. I definitely didn’t see that coming.”

“I like to be unpredictable,” Chanyeol teases, voice quiet while his mind processes all that Baekhyun has said. He shuffles slightly again, trying to find an indent in the trunk that his spine can run along. Sat on a slight angle as he is, his muscles have begun to cramp and ache. There are hot springs in the mountains that he will have to visit at some point, where the heat might ease his discomfort.

“Deer, by the way.” Baekhyun looks up at him expectantly, swiftly changing the mood. “That’s my favourite food. My favourite colour is white, like snow, which is why my favourite season is winter. I like having to wear a hundred furs at once and gathering around a fire with everyone, and the cold is a good conversation starter as well,” he chuckles. “I think I prefer night over day now. The sky is so many different colours at night and it’s so breathtaking. And there’s all the stars too.” Baekhyun cranes his neck and looks up, the slender column of his throat glowing under the moon. “Sometimes I wish people would look around more and see the beauty that’s right there in front of them. They miss so much without even realising it.” He sighs, adding in a whisper: “It’s so stupid.”

Chanyeol shifts again, and this time a muscle that runs all the way down his back gives out in an almighty twinge of pain. He groans by accident, and Baekhyun’s strong hearing picks it up instantly.

“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun’s concern is enough to make Chanyeol’s happiness last a lifetime.

“It’s nothing, really. It’s just all this running is killing my muscles. I can barely even turn my head.”

A flicker of upset shoots through Baekhyun’s eyes, prompting him to sit up off the tree he was lounging against. “Would you like a massage? It’ll help.”

“Are you any good at massages?” Chanyeol asks through a small laugh, a little stunned at the offer. They have only ever touched each other in their wolf form, save for holding one another’s hand and an innocent peck of the lips on platonic areas of the face here and there. This will be Baekhyun’s hands on his shoulders, his neck, his back, for longer than a couple of seconds. Chanyeol is already trembling just thinking about it. Maybe Baekhyun isn’t just holding the reins, but a collar too.

Baekhyun tries to disguise a smirk as an innocent smile. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Chanyeol is sure his ears are burning as he scoots away from the tree, planting himself with nervous excitement halfway between their trees so as to make his back available. He feels unexpectedly vulnerable like this, and it is that feeling that forces him to come to terms with just how much he trusts Baekhyun, both with his body and his feelings.

Even though the night is warm, Baekhyun’s breath is hotter when the omega comes up behind him, sending involuntary tremors through his chest and stomach as though his insides are constantly being battered with static shocks. With Baekhyun crowding into his space from all angles, Chanyeol can smell his skin, his warmth, even the ashy smell of dying embers from a failing fire. Though his scent is not sweet like a fruit or fragrant like a flower, and more so resembles that of a man who hasn’t bathed in a few days after spending long hours amongst the dirt, Chanyeol’s nose latches onto it like a newborn to its mother’s breast, sucking it in as discreetly as possible so as to savour it while it lasts.

Surprisingly, when Baekhyun’s hands come down on his shoulders, they smell faintly of the soap he uses to wash his clothes by the river, and Chanyeol smiles at the memory of placing a daisy behind his ear. Baekhyun is arresting in all circumstances, whether he has flowers in his hair or sweat on his brow, or neither.

“Can you feel the knots?” Chanyeol asks conversationally, his subconscious using his voice as a distraction. Dizzying thoughts possess his mind, thrashing like raging water against the insides of his skull in a bid to be noticed and acted upon. They want him to press Baekhyun against the ground and make him confess, make him choose. They want him to mate with him already, strip down his body and soul until it’s all laid bare for him to caress. What is the use in waiting if they are compatible, willing, flirting? Why hang around and risk another stealing his mate from him?

It is good, really, that he has his subconscious looking out for him.

Baekhyun’s fingers, no matter how delicate they appear to the naked eye, are surprisingly strong. His thumbs are burrowing into his muscles, revolving like a drill to try and alleviate the tension that has been gathering there for well over a week.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun responds, referring to the knots. “Something is twanging. Gross.”

Chanyeol chuckles, then winces when one of his muscles does indeed snap from one place to another. Baekhyun seems to have a knack of spying out the worst areas and mercilessly stabbing at them, leaving Chanyeol feeling distressingly numb down one half of his body. The pain has him gritting his teeth and holding back pitiful noises of discomfort, though some tiny, almost inaudible, whimpers do escape him. If Baekhyun hears, he doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t stop.

He is sure that he will be sore after this, probably bruised too, but the more Baekhyun mixes his muscles and disperses his knots, the easier his fingers begin to move around. Eventually, they traverse to other areas, the pads of his fingers pushing into his neck where they run up and down to direct the blood back and forth. The force and pressure behind them is almost punishing, Chanyeol’s eyes watering on several occasions when it feels like Baekhyun full-on punches a sensitive spot with his thumb. They trail down his back afterwards, then Baekhyun tells him off for slouching, delivering to him a sharp and probably justified poke. Baekhyun kneads with his knuckles this time and it is even worse than before, but thankfully he doesn’t linger for long.

“How’s that?” the omega asks breathlessly, his hands dropping and cupping the sides of his ribcage in what Chanyeol deems to be a half-hug. He can feel Baekhyun’s thighs against his hips and his chest against his back, like a sweet hand around his throat. If he truly focuses, he can sense Baekhyun’s heartbeat thumping between his shoulders. The weight of him is comforting and calming, even grounding, to the point where Chanyeol finds himself drifting off into another place. Be that as it may, he has a question to answer.

He rolls his shoulders and turns his head to the side to see if the strain has lessened. His neck is stiff for a second, firmly locked, then it snaps free all of a sudden and leaves behind a dull ache that gradually fades. His expression flinches at the sharp cracking noise that resonates loudly in his ears, the sound only slightly grotesque.

“I think that means it worked,” Baekhyun chuckles from behind him, voice so terribly close that Chanyeol can feel his ears scorching all over again. The hairs on his neck have prickled significantly, catching onto every slight shift in the breeze and each one of Baekhyun’s breaths, no matter how faint. His skin a hundred times more sensitive than usual. He feels strangely numb and tingly, attuned to Baekhyun’s every movement no matter how slight or frivolous.

On the other hand, there are mild stabbing pains in his chest and stomach, and later, his groin, as though his body is trying to kickstart itself from the stupor Baekhyun has trapped him in so that he might act on the daring thoughts in his head. He imagines pinning Baekhyun down, what noises he would make and what he would look like with his body being touched for the first time. Baekhyun does nothing to quell his fantasies. Instead, his skin is busy rubbing up against his back, arms and hips, and not long after his face is coming to peer at him from over Chanyeol’s shoulder. His body doesn’t know how to cope with the very sudden and admittedly previously unexperienced sensory overload. Baekhyun has always been bold. Now he’s whipping the reins, reaching what could be his full potential, and Chanyeol finds himself to be severely overwhelmed.

The angle is a little awkward and restraining, what with Chanyeol’s broad shoulder blocking Baekhyun’s path, but somehow the omega makes it look effortless. His expression is dazed as though he’s staring at something he’s been waiting for his whole life, eyes hooded and focused on only one thing: Chanyeol’s lips.

A lightning bolt revitalises his heart and suddenly it won’t stop. Its beating gets faster and faster until his mouth pops open and he has to gasp for air, which, in reality is no use at all, not when his lungs are collapsing. But, again, Baekhyun has always been audacious, and he doesn’t spare a glance at Chanyeol who is practically dying before him. It is insignificant to his one focus, his one desire. The unbreakable concentration in his eyes has Chanyeol melting, and he wonders what he did to deserve such an amorous look. Wonders when he became so desired and wanted and sought after. What does Baekhyun even see in him?

If those eyes are anything to go by, he sees everything.

Baekhyun gently purses his lips at the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth, the touch so light that Chanyeol gets impatient and deliberately pushes into it. He has no idea what he’s doing but he knows that he wants to kiss him, and that is as much of a starting point as he needs. Motivated and apparently confident, Chanyeol tries to reposition his head to better align their lips, sacrificing his poor neck muscles in return for glory, and finds that Baekhyun has set him on fire.

“You shouldn’t kiss me too much,” Chanyeol whispers brokenly a few moments later, Baekhyun completely disregarding him and carrying on anyway until: “Why not?”

This time, Chanyeol pulls away a little. Their noses still kiss and his face is sensitive all over, Baekhyun’s breath sending tingling waves all the way down to his chest with every breath that fans across his skin. Baekhyun is everywhere and it’s unimaginably perfect.

“The ancestors might think we’re…” Chanyeol scrambles to regather the loose threads of his mind, tying them up into a mangled, unsightly knot and ending his sentence with the most embarrassing choice of words ever, “wrongly canoodling.”

Baekhyun slowly retreats to meet his eyes as if he can’t believe what he’s just heard. A heavenly smile carves its way across his face as he repeats Chanyeol’s wording, amusement wrapped around his syllables like the bark on a tree until it’s struck by lightning and he’s laughing stupidly right in his face. “Wrongly canoodling?”

“Hey!” Chanyeol cries, somehow pouting and grinning at the same time. “I was brought up by my grandmother, okay? I know all these weird, old-people words!”

It takes a few seconds for Baekhyun to calm down, and when he does, he takes Chanyeol’s face in both his hands and smiles at him secretly. “Let the ancestors think what they want,” he says, voice so low that it’s starkly intimate. “Just let me kiss you.”

That line immediately sends Chanyeol back under. He follows Baekhyun’s lips hungrily until he’s humming and holding him by the waist, every brush of lips seeing Baekhyun move a little around his body to get closer and closer to his heart.

“Mm,” Chanyeol hums, drawing in a breath while Baekhyun unabashedly climbs into his lap as if he’s been sitting there all his life. “Maybe the ancestors won’t see us because it’s dark?”

Baekhyun cackles and throws his head back, collecting the stars in his eyes for when he looks back at Chanyeol from above will all the love he can muster. “Shut up, will you?” he teases, then kissing him through his smile until they’re breathless and numb, minds so far away that they forget everything but each other.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Every time Chanyeol sees Baekhyun around the village, he remembers how they kissed under the stars. His lips start to tingle and his face numbs, as if his muscles remember exactly what it was like and refuse to let him forget. He yearns to feel him again, but realises that they were not as discreet as they should have been when they both disappeared for two hours that night. It seems as though Baekshi and Sehun have upped the ante and he’s not confident that it’s a coincidence.

Chanyeol has just returned from a hunting trip, trying to find Yoona’s infuriating otters (again), when he sees the two of them together – his future mate and his current competition. Summer is creeping in around the corner, bringing with it bright sunlight and undiluted warmth that builds without mercy. Their huts, made from a mixture of wood and mud, dry out and crack under the heat, crumbling back to the thatch-work that reinforces them on the inside. In that state, it would take no more than a strong gust of wind to send the whole structure toppling over, so a part of Chanyeol does understand why Sehun is having his hut resurfaced. He just doesn’t understand why Baekhyun is the one he’s making do it.

Sehun stands over him like a slave master, folded arms matched with a dark scowl, all while breathing down the back of Baekhyun’s neck. The only thing that is missing is the whip. He’s not talking to Baekhyun, as is custom, but occasionally he will step forward and point at something he thinks needs making a priority of or going over again. Not once does he nod or smile. He never even looks Baekhyun in the face.

“Why don’t you give him some room to breathe?” Chanyeol rashly calls over, aware that some of the omegas sat around the moonpost turn to look at his outburst. By some miracle, Baekshi isn’t present; lucky for Chanyeol, as he didn’t even bother to check. He’s too focused on the pair outside the Head Alpha’s hut, said focus shifting to challenge Sehun’s subsequent glare.

Behind him, Baekhyun appears lifeless, hands caked in drying mud and shoulders slouched forwards. Wet, brown streaks run down his forearms over sore, reddened skin, while a great clump of mud gathered in his fist from the bucket at his feet dribbles down over his thighs. His clothes are all but ruined. They shouldn’t be, though. Baekhyun is perpetually meticulous in everything he does. Either Sehun has rushed him because he’s an impatient sod, or he’s been at it for so long that he’s given up entirely and lost the will to live along the way. Neither explanations are particularly moral.

Baekhyun does his best to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the cleanest patch of his arm, but still ends up with a smear of dirt smudged across his skin and into the roots of his hair. How can Sehun stand by and watch Baekhyun battle the sun on his own? As an alpha, especially as one who believes his status is everything, he should feel compelled to help, lessen the omega’s burden.

“Leave us be, Chanyeol,” Sehun warns, a sting in his words that would poison Chanyeol if he were not immune. Trouble is, after Baekhyun kissed him the other day, he has confidence in abundance. A double-edged sword has never been so sharp. He has the guts to finally speak his mind and not allow his views to be influenced by those of others, but it makes him reckless. Reckless to the point that he puts himself in danger and thinks later rather than now.

All that Chanyeol can process is that Baekhyun has chosen him, a hundred times over, and nothing Sehun can do will make him change his mind. Victory pumps through his veins like an adrenalin that fogs his better judgement. It would take a miracle for the ancestors to choose Sehun now, even if Baekhyun appears somewhat willing to carry out his dirty work.

“This isn’t your place,” Sehun then adds, rather uselessly, in Chanyeol’s opinion. As far as he is aware, being outside the Head Alpha’s hut does not equate to being inside it or seeking to take it from its rightful owner, and he most certainly has every right to be in the village centre as a member of the pack. Over the past few days, it has gotten easier to ignore Sehun’s empty threats – if they can even be considered as such when all he does is glare behind polite, bitten words.

“Have you thanked him yet?” Chanyeol asks, crossing his arms over his chest and taking on a defensive stance. “For fixing your hut.” Sehun doesn’t thank Baekhyun for doing his washing, though perhaps he sees that task as menial. Resurfacing an entire hut, however, is not. Gratitude is in order.

Chanyeol’s eyes betray him more than he would like, but when he sees Baekhyun looking at the sky and trying to restrain a smile, he cannot help but stare. His heart fizzles with glee and his own mouth twitches, happy to have brought Baekhyun some relief from the blistering heat and repetition of his task. To make one person do a five-man job is ludicrous. If it weren’t Sehun’s hut, Chanyeol would instantly get stuck in and offer a hand, yet after everything that the other alpha has done, Chanyeol cannot bring himself to feed his ego any further. Not even for Baekhyun’s sake. That being said, it is not like Baekhyun is incapable. He is much, much stronger than he looks upon first glance. 

Of course, Sehun isn’t finished.

“It will be his hut soon, there’s no need to thank him,” he snaps, flaring up a dangerous anger in Chanyeol’s chest that whips through his lungs and up into his throat. He never knew it was possible to harbour this much hate in his own body, for he wants to grab at Sehun’s shoulders and thrash him against the nearest surface until every orifice is bleeding. How greatly he desires to see Sehun bloodied and bruised in a heap on the floor, pride torn to shreds and dignity crumpled to dust in the palm of Chanyeol’s hand.

As quick as the fire had burst, it ceases to exist, doused when Baekhyun sends him a look from behind Sehun’s shoulder that reads a serious and solemn _just go_. Seeing him brings a potent wash of calm, but underneath Chanyeol still simmers. At some point, he’ll boil over.  

He wants to bite back, ask Sehun if he is _completely_ sure that Baekhyun will be moving into his hut to live with him, but he refrains from doing so. Despite his wrath, he knows he would abandon their rivalry if Baekhyun asked him to. It is not like he wants to see Sehun suffer or be alone forever; he just wants Baekhyun to be his and for himself to be Baekhyun’s. Sehun is merely a hurdle he must overcome, though he is exceptionally high and it is so wickedly frustrating.  

Chanyeol stays away from the pack for the rest of the day, even avoiding the pack supper with the intent to eat on his patrol instead. With everyone else tucked away at one end of the village, Chanyeol enjoys the quiet of the evening and finds himself sat by the river on a patch of grass, one hand brushing back and forth over the daisies while the other props him up. Merely to busy himself, he begins to craft the daisies into chains, humming _The Welcome_ to himself to fill in what would be silence if not for the river tinkling at the banks in front of him.

Twelve daisy chains later finds him standing outside Baekhyun’s hut, trying to hang them all in front of his doorway by hooking them in the splits of his thatched roof. It’s risky; Baekshi could appear any moment and an escape would be futile – there’s only one person who isn’t at the supper, after all – but for Baekhyun, apparently, he’ll do anything. He watches and waits from a distance for the time when Baekhyun returns home, just to see the smile on his face. A glorious sight of squinted eyes and perky cheeks. It gives him enough energy to make it through his patrol in record time, and when he comes to rest his head down on his pillow later that night, even though he is still alone, he somehow sleeps easy.

For the next few days, Chanyeol runs slower on his patrols in the hopes that he might run into Baekhyun again. He treasures their secret meetings, attracted to the giddy high brought on by the sense of danger and recklessness, even more attracted to Baekhyun himself. Seeing him from across the village used to be a painful experience. It was a reminder that they could never be, in all meanings of the word and any that follow. Now, Chanyeol only feels content. Even their bond has grown stronger over the past week or so. Where once it felt like a thread of yarn, fine fibres fighting to hold together while being pulled in two opposing directions, it now feels stronger and more muscular. The seedling has grown into a tree, and now it stretches longingly towards the sun.

Chanyeol watches the dawn every day in full, from when the sky is red and grey to when it’s blue and yellow. He lingers on his cliff for as long as he can spare, ears perked and listening out eagerly for the sound of footsteps or the breathing of another soul – the panting of a wolf. None appear. Not once and not at any time of day. Even though Chanyeol spends hours in the forest, waiting and waiting and _waiting_ for Baekhyun to emerge from between the trees, he never does.

He doesn’t doubt that Baekhyun has a good, justifiable reason for his absence. He is just disappointed that he won’t get to see him up close for another day, talk to him in their mutual familiar tone, be the one to kiss him first. Patience had better reward him.

When they’re with the pack, they have to act so indifferent, and seeing Baekhyun and Sehun continuing to court each other is a stab to his heart every time. It is something that he will never recover from seeing no matter how many instances there are. Seeing them together is horrendously wrong.

He returns home in the late morning, changing in his hut before picking a few berries off the bushes by the river for an early lunch. His mind is void of all thought as he chews on them, staring at the current without really seeing what lies before him. The silence closes in, as it so often does, and he finds himself mulling over what his hut would be like if it had Baekhyun’s laughter inside it. It would probably be a lot cleaner, in all honesty. Chanyeol only does the bare minimum when and where he can.

He imagines the music, the songs, another _voice._ As the only person living in his hut, there is never any reason to speak. The structure hollow, like an empty bird nest or a body without a soul, and now that he draws on it he realises how haunting it is. How can he ever feel at home in a place like that?

A roll of his shoulders reminds Chanyeol just how deeply Baekhyun’s massage managed to break him down. His muscles are as pliant as ever, squeezable and soft and only firm when in use, relieving him of pain every time he transitions. Sometimes he imagines Baekhyun’s hands on his shoulders again and finds an involuntary shudder trembling down his spine without warning. Other times, he imagines Baekhyun’s hands in different places, darker places, and it awakens the buried instinct of the alpha from a long-forgotten cave hidden inside of him. Guilt always comes traipsing along after his hot flashes, reprimanding him for giving in.

Bitterly, he recalls the day when Baekhyun was resurfacing Sehun’s hut and looks miserably back at his own. There’s a large crack splintering up the side that faces him, menacing and mocking in an untrustworthy fashion. _I want to collapse, Chanyeol,_ it sneers, so he scowls immaturely back at it, only just catching his tongue before he sticks it out like an infant.

From past summers he knows that a small crack manifests into a lengthy gash no matter what the weather may do. Best fix it now than wake up with a roof on his head, he supposes, but finds himself too physically drained to even think of getting to work. Each time he broods over all that needs to be done, every last drop of energy and enthusiasm he has leaves him to fail. Running two patrols a day has his body and mind unravelled, and the ongoing standoff between him and Sehun selfishly steals everything that’s left. The only times he feels rejuvenated and zealous is when he’s with Baekhyun, but their meetings are anomalies in the grander scheme of things.

“Chanyeol?”

He perks up at that, dragging his eyes from his hut and to the left where he can see Yoona on the path. She has a habit of dropping by unannounced, just coming over to have a chat and maybe make him some tea, and it never fails to make him feel better. Yoona, for all intents and purposes, is always welcome, no matter the time of day or what mood he’s in.

“I’m out here.” He dusts his hands off on his thighs and paces a little towards her approaching figure, clothed in furless knee-long shorts and a vest top, drawn in at the waist with a belt. She smiles brightly at him and Chanyeol returns it as a courtesy, until he senses something off about her stiff posture. Her hands keep twitching in and out of fists and her shoulders are squarer than usual, locked in an awkward position that must be uncomfortable for her. Compared to how she usually walks, with an effortless grace in her arms and a slight sway to her hips, she looks like someone has shoved a stick down her back.

“Chanyeol,” she rubs her lips together and tucks her hair behind her ears, something that Chanyeol has noticed is a nervous trait of hers, “how are you?”

Something feels awfully staged about her tone, like she’s only asking after his wellbeing to ease into something more instead of asking out of genuine curiosity. It’s not like Yoona to hide something from him. She’s usually pretty direct when she wants something. Knowing that fails to make Chanyeol feel better.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replies as calmly as possible. “Did you, um…” In an attempt to not come across as rude or ungrateful for her visit, he flashes a forced and uneasy smile. It’s better than nothing. “Need something?”

Her laugh is worryingly nervous, eyes telling. She knows he knows. “Oh, yes, I, well, it’s more the Head Alpha that needs something, Chanyeol. He needs you to,” she grimaces – a failed smile, “run the mountain route.”

There’s an ominous beat of silence then, as Chanyeol tries to compute what has just been said to him. “The mountain route?” He’s sure he heard wrong, but Yoona’s not denying it. Instead, she nods, wringing her hands together as if wanting to wrangle this situation under her control. Chanyeol narrows his eyes. “Why?” Either another pack has moved into their territory or someone has gone missing. He’s eager to identify which it is. Why else would he be required to run the mountain route and put his own life at risk?

“He, uh, he didn’t say, Chanyeol. He just said that he needs you to leave immediately otherwise… something bad might… happen.”

Yoona couldn’t sound any more unconvincing if she consciously tried. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Chanyeol rebuts, folding his arms across his chest and taking a large step forwards. It’s wrong of him to intimidate an omega like this, especially a mated one, but in his tired, grumpy and altogether fed-up state, he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. He can’t focus on anything other than the loud blood of irritation pumping through his ears, reminding him that he keeps being mistreated and cast aside beyond the boundaries of reason.

“I—No! The Head Alpha didn’t tell me why, Chanyeol, he only said that it was important and he needed you to leave as soon as possible. Please don’t be awkward about it.”

“Right, so he doesn’t have a proper reason is what you’re saying?” sneers Chanyeol, face mangled in disgust as he shoots a hopeless look to the sky. “Yoona, he’s already got me running first thing in the morning and last thing in the afternoon, and _now_ he wants me to run for all the time in between? Is he taking the— argh!” He directs the infuriated question as Yoona by accident and she blanches.

“It is probably for the pack’s safety, Chanyeol. Most of the other alphas are out there too.”

“ _Pack’s safety,”_ he mocks, oblivious as to how he’s coming off. “There’s nothing out here other than us for miles! And there he goes, blabbering on about _pack safety._ I’m not running the mountain route, Yoona. Go and tell him.” Yoona flinches at his growing volume. Chanyeol doesn’t notice when she takes a few feeble steps back.

He puts his back to her to let her know the conversation is over. No matter what she comes out with or what the Head Alpha demands, he is going to hold his ground. There is no way in hell that he is running the mountain route without at least having a vague idea as to why.

It goes quiet after a moment. Chanyeol thinks Yoona has gone to pass on his message, but then she pleads with him again.

“Please, Chanyeol. If you go now, you’ll get back in time for the pack supper.”

Chanyeol rounds on her as though she’s his prey, moderately stunned at what’s just come out of her mouth. Everything inside him bursts. “I’d be back in time to run the next patrol, is what you mean, Yoona. I am _not_ running the mountain route. Go and _tell him._ ”

Her nostrils flare and she clamps her mouth shut. She wants to snap at him, Chanyeol can tell, and he almost wants her to. He wants her to lose her temper and just shriek at him, tell him the truth and give him cause to be on his way, but she doesn’t. They remain bickering back and forth over something that Chanyeol deems to be of little consequence, Yoona not backing down no matter how many times he tells her to go and leave and not come back until she’s dropped the subject. With how stubborn the both of them are, they could stand here and argue for hours, and when it becomes apparent that Yoona has no intention of either giving him an explanation or going to talk to the Head Alpha on his behalf, Chanyeol finally loses what little patience he has left.

“Fine,” he cuts off her final plea, shoving his way past her arm with a resolute stride. “I’ll go and tell him myself.”

Chanyeol has never seen her look so alarmed in her life. “No! Chanyeol, wait!” she cries as she scrambles after him. “The Head Alpha is busy, Chanyeol! There’s no point in coming this way!”

He refuses to look at her, even when she jogs around to put herself in his path to try and stop him from progressing further. There’s only an ounce of guilt on his conscience with the way he’s treating her, but the rage of his wolf cannot be dimmed now. Never has he felt so frustrated and trapped before, and never has he been so annoyed at Yoona. It hurts him more than it should, because in a way he supposes that she’s his best friend and she’s keeping things from him. Who knows? It could be to protect him, keep him safe, but Chanyeol’s irate wolf hasn’t stopped to consider anything like that. All it feels is anger.

“Okay, Chanyeol, fine! I’ll go and tell him, just go back to your hut, okay?” she pleads, worryingly desperate as she braces her hands around his arm and tries to drag him backwards. For someone so slim, she is surprisingly strong. Just not strong enough.

“What is wrong with you?” he growls, shaking her off mid-step and causing her to stumble. A flash of pain splits across her face and manages to penetrate Chanyeol’s clouded mind. All he has done dawns on him in an instant and he begins to feel awful. More so because she’s the only friend he has. She means much more to him than denying any order the Head Alpha thrusts upon him. An apology is on the tip of his tongue, poignant eyes boring into hers with sorrow from his aching heart, when he hears a sharp wail coming from one of the huts. It cuts off his thoughts in an instant and he turns to face the direction it came from, ears prickling as other agonised cries follow in its path.

“Chanyeol,” Yoona whispers, voice piercing. “Please go.”

“What is that?” he demands curtly, glaring at her with fists clenched and ears tuned into whoever it is in great pain. Yoona doesn’t reply, of course she doesn’t, so Chanyeol goes to find out for himself.

If anything, Yoona gets worse. “No, Chanyeol. No! You can’t go this way, please turn back!”

But it’s too late for her to do anything. “Is that—” With every step, the voice gets clearer. He’s heard it laughing before, singing, shouting, answering his questions with a teasing lilt and a hushed resonance. His heart drops into his stomach like a rock, so heavy that it takes his lungs with him. “That’s… That’s Baekhyun.”

“No! No, it’s not! It’s… It’s…”

Chanyeol presses against her, craning his neck forwards to glare down into her stare. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s not Baekhyun.”

She shrinks beneath him, robbed of her power. She can do nought but shake her head in defeat. Exasperated, she lets out a hopeless breath and bitterly shrugs, no more pleas left and nothing else to say, except for when she screams for her mate when Chanyeol starts to run.

Baekhyun’s hut isn’t far from here, and as he grows closer he sees a crowd of people outside his doorway. His anguished bawls have their bond quivering like a bowstring, each tremble a shoot of excruciating pain that hits straight into Chanyeol’s chest without holding back. It feels like he’s burning from the inside out, sweat gathering on his brow and the back of his neck even though a light sprint like this shouldn’t be exhausting him at all.

Out of all the people screaming in his face for him to keep back, omegas and alphas alike, the only thing Chanyeol can concentrate on is the fact that his _mate_ is in pain and he needs to make it better. Fire spreads to the pit of his stomach and sends nausea smoking through his body. It condenses over his eyes in a thick fog, not unlike the huge tunnel of smoke from a funeral pyre, accented with a sickening kind of smell. The words _mate_ and _danger_ thunder through his head and thrash everything else to the side. He needs to get to Baekhyun. Baekhyun _needs_ him. So why won’t they let him through?

He resorts to brute force. What if Sehun is in there now? What if Sehun is at the side of _his_ mate when he needs help? Not in a million years would Chanyeol ever let that happen. His hands clap ruthlessly down on shoulders and use them as leverage to hurl people behind him, but it seems that for every person he disposes of, another comes to take their place. Their mouths are moving but he can’t hear what they’re saying, can’t hear if they’re finally giving him the explanation he deserves or just telling him to go and run the mountain route like Yoona had tried, just to get him out of the pack village so he wouldn’t find out about Baekhyun’s suffering.

“ _Move!”_ he roars, believing that he can hear Baekhyun crying his name on the other side of the door. He shouts until his voice is raw but it gets him nowhere, and he’s stuck clawing at the pack members who have come to surround him and bar him from getting any closer. His feet kick out until his toes have gone numb and he bends his knee into whatever or whoever is in front of him. Someone falls over but he doesn’t see who, only hears Baekhyun’s wailing and Yoona’s shrill screaming.

A weight on his shoulders wrenches him backwards and his feet become redundant, heels grappling for purchase on the ground so he can turn to face his attacker. He doesn’t see a face but a fist. His rolling eyes catch sight of Minhun just before he’s hit again, the sharp ringing in his ears getting louder until it starts to take his vision away. Just before all becomes black, he swears he hears Baekhyun calling his name one more time, but the voice morphs and shifts until he’s not sure anymore. It could be anyone shouting for him. Baekhyun might not want him at all.

The last thing he can remember is a pair of feet kicking his face, or rather, his head rushing to hit the feet. It takes a while for him to work out why his head is throbbing and why there’s something sticky on his lips, but then the woozy memory of Minhun’s knuckles resurfaces and things begin to settle into place, however scarring it might be. Through the blood clogged in his nose, Chanyeol recognises a sweet smell in the air that makes his bond cry out in distress. He’s ineffably drawn to it, just too debilitated to trace it. He hasn’t the energy to breathe.

The sun is so bright that it blinds him even though his eyes are closed, and it’s when he goes to shield them with his palm that he realises he can’t move his arm properly. With his chin bowed against his chest, he squints and makes out several layers of rope wrapped snugly around his wrists. It takes him a second to register that they aren’t normally there, but when he tries to look around further it feels like someone has dropped a boulder on his head.

For a while, he is slumped there showing no signs of life, leaning against something knobbly that causes his back to cramp. By late afternoon, when the sun is behind him and heading towards the horizon, he discovers that the pack omegas keep anxiously looking over at him from the village centre.

But why is he in the village centre?

Or, more importantly, why is he tied to a tree?

 

 

 

 

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	7. Chapter 7

 

His skin itches all over, his barely contained rage sending tremors through his body while his humiliation forces his heart rate sky high. He is almost delirious enough that the throbbing in his cheek seems strangely numb. Then he’ll twitch or breathe and it feels like he’s just been punched all over again. When Minhun comes strolling by the village centre, Chanyeol notices that his hand is wrapped in bloodstained cloth. Just how many times did he have to hit him?

The sun sinks on his first day captive and he still hasn’t had any answers, though he has managed to assess a pattern in Baekhyun’s wauling. Every hour or so, Chanyeol’s ears catch onto groans of distress that will spin like the funnel of a hurricane and gather the winds around them, strengthening into shrieking sobs that have Chanyeol writhing against his ties and trying to force himself free.

He is being withheld in a peculiar fashion – a couple of ropes that tie onto his wrists at both ends, looping around the trunk of the tree that looks out over the village centre and the moonpost. How long will they keep him here, he wonders. Long enough to see the full moon pass and Baekhyun be mated with Sehun? With only his arms bound, he is free to stand, walk a few paces forward and skirt around the tree if he pleases, but he wouldn’t be close enough for the moonlight to bathe him.

None of the omegas seem to be able to keep their eyes off him as he slouches there, distraught and wrestling against the will of the pack with all that he has. No one comes to help him or rationalise their actions. He sits in the shade as much as he sits in the dark, watching the pack move along without him. Just like he’s always known, he’s dispensable – though he could have sworn Baekhyun was calling his name. When he tries to remember exactly how things panned out, all he can hear is crying, a few blurry images of himself clawing at people. That, and Baekhyun hasn’t cried his name since. Chanyeol was probably imagining it all.

Out of the glow of the fire, Chanyeol observes the pack as they settle down for their evening meal. Everyone seems jolly, as though Chanyeol’s torment was nothing more than a passing summer shower. It’s not long, though, before Yoona is pacing towards him with a plate of food in either hand. There are so many things he wants to ask her that he doesn’t even know where to start.

“Chanyeol,” she says as greeting, smiling when she sits down and hands him some food.

“I’m not hungry.” As childish as it may seem – to sulk and refuse to eat – Chanyeol really doesn’t have an appetite. The same sweet smell lingers in the air and his stomach burns every so often, usually when Baekhyun screams at his loudest. It would sicken him, if not for the nausea of being barred from seeing his _mate_ poisoning him first.

Yoona sighs, crossing her legs in a new pair of leggings and resting Chanyeol’s plate on the floor. “Well, you need to eat something.” She shrugs, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear to stop it from falling into her food.

“Yoona, what is going on?” His voice unwittingly cracks in the middle.

Her sigh this time is long-suffering. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she begins quietly, eyeing him with pity and sympathy and all things that puncture the last shred of dignity he has. “Please don’t mention it to anyone else. I mean, they all know, but they don’t want you to know.”

“Know what?” he spits, fists clenching and veins protruding against the rope.

“This morning, Baekhyun went into heat for the first time,” she whispers, sucking the duck fat from her thumb and pausing her eating for a moment.

Chanyeol’s eyes widen considerably, the smoke of the fire getting caught under his eyelids and making them water. “I’ve never known an omega to have a heat like that.” Not once has he bore witness to an omega’s heat, only because there’s never anything to look at. The only thing that changes is their smell, and should they want pups, they disappear for a few days. They never scream in agony until they have no voice left, and they never smell this strong. They’re never _intoxicating_.

“It’s because he’s unmated, Chanyeol. His wolf – it’s calling out for a mate.”

 _Mate._ “Is there someone in there with him?” Chanyeol can barely keep the trembling out of his voice when he asks that. “Is _Sehun_ in there with him?”

“No! Gosh, no!” Yoona cries immediately, making a few people from beside the fire look back at her. Her immediate response has Chanyeol calming, just a little. “He left with the other unmated alphas of the pack.” She grimaces guiltily. “We were trying to get you to leave as well.”

“So that’s why you lied to me,” he huffs, rocking his head back against the tree and watching the sparks of the fire flicker against the indigo sky. “You suck at it by the way. You should have told me the truth.”

“Told you the truth? Would you really have left if you knew what was happening?” She scoffs lightly, then sighs again. Chanyeol doesn’t offer an answer to her question, mostly because she’s probably right. “Listen, I don’t know how close you and Baekhyun are. I have a feeling you’ve been talking more, but none of that matters. No one in the pack knows, Chanyeol. To be honest, none of them really suspect anything either. Did you think they were going to let you walk into Baekhyun’s hut and take him, when for all they know, you’re both complete strangers?”

Chanyeol closes his eyes and pretends he can’t hear her.

“I’m sorry that Minhun punched you, Chanyeol. And I’m sorry that I lied. But if we’d have let you get into that hut and… _taken_ Baekhyun, even if you both were fine with it and even wanted it, the Head Alpha would have banished you from the pack, if he hadn’t killed you. I can’t be on your side if you’re not here anymore.”

For a moment, Chanyeol thinks bitterly that if he had been put to death, he would have become an ancestor and could have stopped the rest of them from choosing Sehun as Baekhyun’s alpha. Some ridiculous side of himself decides to classify that as an option, if push comes to shove.

She makes sense though. Yoona always makes sense. He wants to forgive her, let her mind rest, but he’s still too wound up to be so kind. Over the chatter of the pack dinner, he thinks he can hear Baekhyun crying again and he physically whimpers at the ache in his chest.

“Your pupils have dilated,” Yoona murmurs offhandedly. “Have you bonded with him a little?”

Chanyeol winces, then nods. “Since the last full moon.”

Yoona gasps. “That long? Oh, Chanyeol… I’m so sorry. I want you to be happy, you know I do, but the pack are just so—” She holds up her hands and squeezes them into fists, letting out a frustrated groan and looking out over the pack supper.

“Yoona,” Chanyeol starts, staring deep into her eyes, “why am I tied to a tree? You couldn’t have tied me to my bed or something?”

She closes her eyes and hangs her head. “I told them it wasn’t a good idea,” she mutters.

“Who?”

Her following smile is sad, head tilted to the side. “Well, after Minhun knocked you unconscious, Baekshi brought up the fact that we didn’t know how long you were going to be unconscious for. Minhun suggested that if you woke up, he’d just hit you again, but Baekshi refused to let him risk it. She didn’t want us to take you to your hut, only for you to wake up halfway there and break free again. Without locking you in someone else’s hut or tying you to the moonpost, this tree was the nearest alternative. Minhun tried reasoning with her but the Head Alpha came and put his foot down. There was nothing we could do. I’m… I’m sorry for that as well.”

“Can you move me? Please, Yoona.” Sitting out here all day has crushed him whole – dignity, pride and spirit. If it weren’t for the rope allowing him to get to the river bank, he would have wet himself by now in front of everyone. “Please. I can’t be here like this.”

“I can’t, Chanyeol. I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head, and it squeezes Chanyeol’s chest.

“Why?” he forces out through gritted teeth. Baekhyun moans again in the distance.

“I’m not strong enough to move you, Chanyeol. And if I do set you loose there’s no guarantee that you won’t be distracted by Baekhyun and try to break free again before I have you in your hut. Do you think Baekshi and the Head Alpha will be as lenient this time?”

“If you get Minhun—”

“I can’t, Chanyeol. He would never agree to help me. No one would. I’m so sorry.”

Chanyeol clenches his jaw, fighting past every one of his instincts so he won’t lash out at her again. “Fine,” he lets out stiffly. “I’ll just change into my wolf.”

“No!” Yoona protests, adamant. “Chanyeol, if you change into your wolf with the ropes around your wrists, you risk deforming yourself. Please don’t, Chanyeol!”

“Yoona!” Chanyeol cries, throwing his head back again and scrunching his eyes closed when he feels the tears coming. “Fuck!” How did he ever end up in this position? Why didn’t the pack let him mate Baekhyun when he was clearly the chosen alpha? Out of frustration, he throws his fists against the ground. He has never experienced a helplessness so potent. “At least do me one thing, Yoona,” he pleads, opening his eyes to see her quickly brushing away a tear.

“I—What?”

“Just,” Chanyeol sags in defeat, “untie me before Sehun gets back. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

She creeps closer on her knees, squeezing his shoulder with her hand before moving to cup his cheek. “I will do my best, Chanyeol. Please, try and eat something for me, okay?” She watches him until he answers, then leaves for her mate.

The novelty of his imprisonment wears off after the first day. Now, the pack no longer gawp at him like he’s a rabid disease plotting to spread each time they walk by. Of course, there are still the curious few who stare a little too long.

Yoona sits and eats her meals with him, lets him know that Minhun plans to apologise once the ordeal is over. The Head Alpha always checks on him when he strides past nearby, eyes narrowed beneath a heavy brow that leaves him with a permanent scowl. Kyungsoo, another omega, also keeps sneaking peeks here and there. But it is Baekshi’s blatant staring (and smirking) that pisses him off the most. How she looks so pleased with herself whenever she resurfaces to find food or water for her suffering son—a son that wouldn’t be suffering if she had let fate run its course.

It’s hardest when Baekhyun begins wailing again. He can feel every one of his senses fine-tuning themselves into the smell, his voice, their bond. With every choke and gasp for air on Baekhyun’s part, Chanyeol finds himself thrumming with a pain that buzzes through him like lightning, the heat returned to the pit of his stomach as if the bond is mirroring a fraction of Baekhyun’s trauma – a reflection he would rather not look at, simply because it hurts.

He still finds it a challenge to eat, appetite lost to the stickiness of the air. It benefits him in an unexpected way, for every time he has to relieve himself, he doesn’t have to deal with anything solid. Pissing in the river is shaming him enough. Shitting in it would leave him drowning in mortification.

No matter how many times he hears Baekhyun from across the village, he never stops fighting against the rope that binds him to the tree. It is thick and cumbersome, and even though Chanyeol grazes it back and forth across the bark a thousand times, it never once frays. Instead, it cuts deep into his wrists until he bleeds; it will wear him down to the bone if he ever gives it the ammunition.  

When Yoona is busy elsewhere, it is the young omega Kyungsoo who brings him his food – food he does not eat. Baekhyun’s smell is latched onto the omega’s clothes, almost as if Kyungsoo is dangling him under his nose just to tease. But something tells Chanyeol that Kyungsoo wouldn’t do such a thing on purpose. He’s a kind being, and Chanyeol has seen him heading towards Baekhyun’s hut a number of times. Kyungsoo must be tending to him. It would explain why he stinks so badly.

It also means that Kyungsoo knows how Baekhyun is doing, and seeing as Chanyeol has already spoken to one unmated omega, what difference would another make?

“Forgive me, ancestors, grandmother,” he whispers to the skies at noon on his third day by the tree. If it weren’t for the branches and leaves glowing green above him he would be perilously sunburned by now. In a way, it protects him, while also protecting Baekhyun. There is no denying that he yearns to be inside the Byun family hut with Baekhyun, helping him through his heat, claiming him, becoming his mate. He has an inkling that Baekhyun wants that too, but what if he doesn’t? What if he’s not ready? If Chanyeol had broken down Baekhyun’s door and forced himself upon him, he would never have forgiven himself.

Kyungsoo finds him in a sombre moment. The omega crouches down beside him and rests a plate of food and a cup of water by his feet, wide, owl-like eyes blinking curiously at him before he makes to walk away.

“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol hums, almost inaudibly. Naturally, Kyungsoo gasps as though he’s been slapped and turns to face Chanyeol like he was the one who did it. “You don’t have to reply to me,” Chanyeol goes on, “but, how is he? Baekhyun.”

Gaping, Kyungsoo keeps mum.

“Is he in pain?” Chanyeol asks with a grimace, the very thought bringing a stab to his chest. Baekhyun in pain, what a monstrosity. As his alpha, Chanyeol should be protecting Baekhyun at all costs. He should be there, he should be with him, perhaps not intimately, but he should at least be present. He can restrain himself. He isn’t some animal. Wiping sweat from his brow and bringing him water would be all he’d do.

Kyungsoo slowly nods and Chanyeol beseeches the sky, hoping for Baekhyun to be relieved of the flames. The omega slips away then, quiet and contained with hurried, little steps. He’s a peculiar one, Kyungsoo is, but he is thoughtful and considerate. He is glad to know Baekhyun has a friend like him, someone else to rely on other than his wretched mother.

Chanyeol gulps down the water he was given and picks at the food over the next couple of hours, body exhausted of zest and determination. When he breathes, ofttimes he finds himself snarling like his wolf, the sounds that vibrate through his chest very much inhuman. His four-legged friend longs for release, trapped inside an ailing body that has all but seized up. Never has his wolf gone so long without looking up into the sun or splashing its paws through the shallows. Chanyeol misses the feeling of the wind in his fur and the forest beneath his claws. He misses sitting on his cliff and watching the mountain couple birth the sun.

He casts his eyes down to his wrists to see where the struggling has marred his skin. The harsh bristles of the rope dig persistently into wounds that are trying their best to heal, dried, brown blood and scabs flaking off whenever he moves. On a regular day, perhaps he would be strong enough to break the rope and be set free. Today, he is simply too tired. That, and he’s in enough trouble as it is.

He decides to wait out the storm. Surely it cannot last much longer. From what little he knows, courtesy of his grandmother’s fond and crackling tone, heats last anywhere between three and five days. But he supposes it would just be his luck, wouldn’t it, if Baekhyun’s heat went on for well over a week.

Despite his thinking, on the fourth day at noon, Baekhyun is slowly creeping towards the pack omegas. His hand is shielding his eyes from the sun that must burn his unadjusted sight, while his steps are stiff and uncertain, as though he feels he’s about to fall over from the amount of strength his heat has robbed of him. Chanyeol can do no more than lift his head off the bark behind him to look at Baekhyun more squarely. He hasn’t the energy to fight against his ties any longer. Not even enough to stand. All he does is watch, stare, as Baekhyun gradually looks around to get his bearings back, and then looks directly at him.

Baekhyun’s hand slowly lowers and Chanyeol is sucked into his eyes. The omega’s expression bleeds from relieved to sickly in less than a second when he comprehends what he’s seeing, and Chanyeol’s heart skips several beats when Baekhyun immediately starts making a beeline towards him. Baekhyun probably has no idea what was going on while he was barred inside by the shackles of his wolf. He probably has no idea how much his mother has to do with it either.

Chanyeol’s lips part to call out of him, voice quiet albeit there, before his eyes latch onto another figure marching up behind his mate. Baekshi’s look of pure anger overshadows that of Baekhyun’s heartbreak, and soon enough, she is steering him away from Chanyeol and towards the river. Chanyeol’s head follows along, lolling back against the tree when it gets too hard to keep himself propped up. Baekshi really is something.

His eyes linger insistently on where he last saw Baekhyun before he disappeared, so focused that he doesn’t notice Yoona or Minhun crouching down before him until one of them says his name. Yoona meets him with a smile while Minhun slices at the rope with a sharp piece of slate, freeing his wrists and releasing him back into civilisation.

“Let’s get you home,” says Yoona, sweeping up his hands and guiding him to his feet while her eyes worrisomely caress the mess that is his forearms. Even now, when his wounds are more than two days old, they bleed anew at the slightest disturbance. Perhaps he will be left with scars forever; a constant reminder that he became a prisoner in his own pack and never got the mate he longed for. Perhaps it is punishment from the ancestors for breaking their rules.

The only positive that can be derived from such an experience is that Yoona is doing as he had asked, moving him before Sehun returns. He has saved himself that humiliation at least.

Minhun joins to help share Chanyeol’s weight, and the both of them support his weary, ragged form up the hill and into his hut where they rest him down on his couch. Again, the pack gawp at him. As far as he can see, he will never be one of them. They will berate him for every little mistake, outcast him for all suspected and unproven torts, most likely banish him for a crime he didn’t have any intention of committing. They are so dead set in their views that they’ll never see past the label they thrust upon him.

He will always be an outsider.

“Chanyeol,” Minhun starts, “I want to say I’m sorry for the way I treated you. You didn’t deserve it, especially not in front of all those people.”

Chanyeol grunts, refusing to meet his eyes. He has a problem with the words _you didn’t deserve it,_ when clearly at the time, Minhun thought he did. Hell, everyone thought he did. Although he knows Minhun to be a sound man, if not slightly intimidating, it makes Chanyeol question just how genuine of an apology it is, makes him question whether Minhun is on his side or the side of the Head Alpha.

Minhun is none the wiser of Chanyeol’s thoughts however, and takes his response as one of fatigue. “Yoona, fetch him something to eat. I think he needs it.”

“Of course,” she replies instantly, her palm pressed against Chanyeol’s forehead to check for a temperature. “I’ll get you some medicine as well, alright? To relieve any pain and help you sleep.”

“Alright,” Chanyeol murmurs, leaning against the back of his couch and wincing as his muscles cramp. There’s a beat of silence while he stares at the ceiling, Yoona gone and Minhun taking a nosy pan around.

Chanyeol finds himself thinking back to when Yoona and Minhun were mated. They never courted one another before the full moon, but they fell into place as easily as if they’d known each other all grace. They had no trouble. No one to object to their pairing, no overbearing parents to imprison them. In every way, they appear to be perfect.

“Looks like a nasty bruise,” Minhun murmurs, gesturing to Chanyeol’s cheekbone with a stodgy finger. Minhun has always been a large man. Chanyeol’s grandmother told him that Minhun used to be much rounder than the other pups in his childhood, but when he came of age, the fat that hugged his bones like a mother to her babe welded itself into muscle. He became both wider and taller than the Head Alpha himself, and subsequently appears to be five times the size of his mate. Nevertheless, they fit well together. Yoona softens the bulk of his arms and the weight of his steps. Again, perfect.

Taking all of that into account, it would be a miracle for one of Minhun’s punches not to leave one hell of a bruise.

Chanyeol flinches at a random stab of pain. “Feels like a nasty bruise.” The adrenalin of fighting for Baekhyun has long since died down, and after not being required to speak for the past several days, it only now becomes apparent just how much it hurts to move his jaw. “I hope nothing’s broken,” he mutters sourly, unconsciously making the problem worse if his jaw _is_ broken, by keeping up the conversation.

“It shouldn’t be,” Minhun chuckles. “I only hit you twice, Chanyeol.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” He tries to civil, but he fails.

“Alright,” Yoona’s voice suddenly reappears, “I quickly boiled some vegetables for you. They’re quite squishy now so should be easy to eat. I mixed medicine in with the water as well, so that’s also taken care of. I’ll bring you some meat from the pack supper later on if you want, though I think after this you’ll be asleep for quite some time. Here.” She carefully places it in his lap, then hisses when she sees his wrists. “Do you want me to look at those for you?”

As soon as the question is out, Chanyeol shies away and hides his hands. “No, it’s fine.” All he wants now is to be left alone, not treated like a child because he can’t take care of himself properly. He is more than capable of fetching his own food and tending to his own wounds, even in this state.

“They…” Yoona takes a deep breath. “But, Chanyeol, they don’t look fine, alright? I can very easily clean them for you, find you some cloth we can use as a bandage—”

“Yoona, I said no,” Chanyeol interrupts, looking up at her and hiding a grimace when he feels something snap in his heart. If he and Baekhyun never become mates, Chanyeol doesn’t know how he’ll cope being surrounded with so many couples, Yoona and Minhun especially. “I’m fine,” he shrugs, dropping his eyes, “trust me.”

“Well…” Yoona starts, then doesn’t know how to end. Minhun wraps an arm around her waist and discreetly starts to ease her from the hut. They make it as far as the doorway before Yoona lurches around one last time and says, “Chanyeol, are you sure? I really don’t mind—”

“Yoona,” Minhun sounds like he’s smiling, “it’s alright. Let’s go. Chanyeol needs sleep more than anything.”

She makes an affronted noise, then provides an optimistic “See you later” before she slips out of sight.

Chanyeol deflates and stares down at his food, going to pinch a carrot between his finger and thumb and accidentally squashing it into mush. She wasn’t kidding when she said ‘squishy’. He starts to feed himself, hunching his back so he can meet his hand halfway with his mouth, to lessen the exertion of his elbows. The vegetables taste slightly off, only because of the medicine, and they leave a strange, earthen taste on his tongue that he isn’t particularly fond of. There’s potatoes, parsnips, carrots, a few sprouts too, and Chanyeol smiles faintly; Yoona could have just dug up three carrots and called it quits. Instead, she got him a variety, and Chanyeol knows for a fact that she doesn’t have parsnips in her own lot.

Footsteps approach. Chanyeol finds himself rolling his eyes. “Yoona, I told you—”

Baekhyun stands on his threshold, a wicker basket full of washing on his arm and a look of troubled concern on his face. He’s panting, either because he’s rushed here in a hurry or because he’s too tired to do chores of that magnitude at the moment. Chanyeol doesn’t find it hard to imagine Baekshi ordering him to do Sehun’s washing the second he come out of his heat. Sehun isn’t even here in the village to _have_ any dirty laundry. Still, he forgoes those questions and opens the conversation with a panic-stricken: “What the hell was going on?”

Baekhyun drops the basket without a thought, coming to sit beside him on the sofa and raking his eyes over the contusions and scars littered across Chanyeol’s face and arms. He looks like he doesn’t know what to say, reaching a wary hand out to faintly brush the angry red skin of Chanyeol’s wrist, freckled with bloody spots.

“It was my heat,” Baekhyun tells him, voice thick and choked as if the sight he beholds is worth tearing up over. He angles his body to the side so he can face Chanyeol more squarely and proceeds to slip his hand into Chanyeol’s where his palm is rough and coarse. Baekhyun feels warm, Chanyeol thinks, and wonders whether it is a lingering symptom of the calamitous heat he claims to have had.

“I have never seen a heat like that,” Chanyeol objects, only now wondering whether he’s still being lied to about what exactly has been going on for the past few days. “You were screaming and crying and… you sounded like you were in agony, I—”

“It’s because I’m unmated, Chanyeol,” says Baekhyun, eyes once again focusing on the rope burns. His hair falls down softly into his eyes, and Chanyeol imagines it drenched in sweat. Picturing Baekhyun in heat is doing things to his body, whether he wants it to or not. “My body was calling out for an alpha. It… wanted to be mated so I,” he grimaces, “started to stink. Stink like… you know.”

Chanyeol doesn’t know exactly what Baekhyun is referring to, but he has an idea.

“That’s why the ancestors choose us a mate as soon as we come of age, if they can, so we don’t have to go through that. It really hurt, Chanyeol, I,” he hangs his head, “I never want to go through a heat like that again.” Baekhyun drops his head onto Chanyeol’s shoulder and rests it there for a moment, his free hand running soothingly over Chanyeol’s wounds. “I can’t believe they tied you up, Chanyeol. I’m so sorry.”

Chanyeol almost wants to ask Baekhyun if he really called for him on the first day, but thinks better of it. Instead, he takes Baekhyun’s hand in both of his and squeezes reassuringly. “I had no idea what was going on. No one told me anything so I got a bit… pissed off.”

Baekhyun chuckles once, lifting his head slightly to meet his eyes again. Chanyeol gets lost in the golden rivers that swirl around his pupils. For this omega’s affections, he would let himself be tied to any tree for any amount of time. Even just Baekhyun touching him, tracing his hands up and down his grazed skin, has him forgetting all his troubles. It is all worth it, if he has Baekhyun.

“What happened to your face though?” Baekhyun wonders, though he doesn’t move to cup his cheek like Chanyeol hopes.

“Minhun hit me.”

Baekhyun’s eyes shoot wide. “Minhun?”

“There’s no hard feelings. I was trying to break down your door. Someone had to stop me somehow.” He shrugs but he’s still bitter. Mostly because it still hurts. He then remembers that Yoona put medicine on his food, the plate still balanced on his knees, and he decides he should probably begin to eat before it goes cold. It’s not long before Baekhyun takes over, feeding him the soft vegetables in a way that leads his fingertips to sweep against his lips. At one point, Chanyeol kisses them deliberately, and it turns Baekhyun pink.

“I don’t remember much of what was going on,” Baekhyun murmurs once half the plate is empty. He is intent on making sure Chanyeol eats it all, apparently, because he never waits long before serving him something else. “I woke up and felt like I was on fire.” Chanyeol recalls feeling the same thing, but doesn’t mention it. “Before I understood what was happening I was… I soaked the bed through and I couldn’t stop coming and my mum was watching me the whole time. It was just humiliating.”

There are tears in his eyes. Chanyeol makes to wipe them away, maybe kiss them away, but the medicine is steadily coming into effect. He is not even lucid enough to register that Baekhyun has just spoken of something inherently private.

“Kyungsoo helped. Bless that boy. I hope he has a good alpha. He deserves it,” Baekhyun goes on, merely filling the silence with his thoughts and feelings until the plate is bare. “You ought to lie down, Chanyeol,” he’s telling him then. “Come and rest.”

The next thing he knows, he’s being lowered onto his furs and there’s a hand running through his hair. “Get some sleep,” Baekhyun’s voice whispers. “I’ll tend to you.”

 _I’ll tend to you._ Chanyeol has never felt so safe in all his life. He reaches blindly for the treasure he shares a bond with and is gifted with a kiss to his palm.

“Sleep, Chanyeol. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

And he is.

He’s there, humming a tune that Chanyeol doesn’t think he has heard before while his hands stroke through his hair. The melody is not particularly sad, but strangely bittersweet when the notes turn long and high towards the end.  He wonders what song it is, wonders if it means something significant, and opens his eyes to Baekhyun’s face hanging over his. The omega is curled around Chanyeol’s head with both their legs running parallel, one elbow holding him up. Chanyeol feels utterly closed in, confined within the press of a body that feels so warm against his own. It feels wonderful.

Baekhyun doesn’t stop humming when he realises he’s being watched, only smiles and taps Chanyeol’s nose to say hello. Chanyeol scrunches his face in response, pleased that he feels no pain and proceeds to bask in his relief. He waits patiently until Baekhyun has finished before he asks how long he was asleep for.

“Not long. I fixed you up, though. See?” He reaches out to drape his fingers over Chanyeol’s wrist, the latter’s eyes following to find cloth wrapped around his wounds, soothing and cool on the inside yet dry on the outside. “It will help with infection and the pain. Tomorrow – whenever, really – I will come back and change them for you, just to make sure everything is fine.”

Chanyeol’s heart thunders, grinding his pulse in his ears. Baekhyun certainly looks splendid from below. His feathery hair falls forwards over his eyes, and there are creases in the skin at the side of his neck from how he is leaning. With the shadow of Chanyeol’s hut over his face, his eyes glow molten.

Baekhyun touches his face as he slides a little down the mattress, not entirely by accident. Their faces are much closer now, in reach, and Chanyeol’s stomach bubbles at the mere thought of kissing him again. Time after time, Baekhyun has proved his perfection to no end. He is the omega every alpha yearns for: one who will take care of them, one who will help them no matter the cost, one will show them devotion in abundance with no ulterior motive. Though Baekhyun has the sun in his eyes, Chanyeol reckons the moon will bless them all the same. May the ancestors watch over them now, witness all they are and see what they will become, and gift them solace.

“How are you feeling?” His voice reminds Chanyeol that Baekhyun is still in the room, and he finds himself blushing at how he has just spaced out with their eyes glued together.

“Better,” he replies honestly, amending it to “Much better” when he feels it isn’t enough to express his gratitude. “Thank you.” Chanyeol wants to kiss him so badly, roll him over into the mattress and rain down on him with his lips, but he finds that he hasn’t the strength to even pout. It is only his imagination that runs wild now, body lagging behind, waiting to catch up.

Baekhyun smiles. “I’ll have to leave in a minute,” he’s then saying, fingers combing Chanyeol’s hair away from his face. “My mum thinks I’m doing the washing. She’ll come looking if I’m gone for much longer. I don’t want her to find me here.”

“I understand,” Chanyeol says meekly, dropping his eyes.

“I will find you soon. In the forest.” Baekhyun carefully removes himself from around him, only sitting on the edge of the bed now, twisted around to face him. “Don’t run the evening patrol tonight, Chanyeol. I don’t care what Head Alpha says. Don’t even run it tomorrow if you feel like you can’t. You need time to rest and heal. I will do my best to come back and change the bandages, but if I can’t, I’ll send Yoona. Alright?”

Humming, Chanyeol gives an affirmative nod, closing his eyes when Baekhyun pecks his forehead.

“Sleep now, Chanyeol. Regain your strength,” Baekhyun whispers against his face, lightning bolts scattering across Chanyeol’s skin wherever Baekhyun is near. The omega reaches his lips, brushes them together once, and reminds him that the full moon is close before he leaves with a small, secretive smile and his sullied blankets hooked on his arm.

Chanyeol can smell the leftovers of Baekhyun’s heat long after he’s left.

It takes a few days before Chanyeol feels up to running the patrol again. Each day, enclosed in his hut with no reason or will to leave, he waits for Baekhyun to pop up in his doorway again. He always feels guilty when he deflates at the sight of Yoona there instead, three times in a row, with no Baekhyun in sight. She changes his bandages for him, happy to finally be helping, and never forgets to apologise at least four more times before she leaves again, promising to eat dinner with him later.

Sehun and the other alphas will have returned to the pack by now. Sehun haunts Chanyeol at night, when his mind conjures pictures on his dark ceiling. He imagines the smug look on Sehun’s face when he is told about what happened to him, how he had to be punched out cold by Minhun and tied to a tree for four days because he went crazy. It grates at his nerves, how Sehun most likely laughs about him with all his alpha friends who are equally as self-absorbed and conceited as he is. It hurts him even more to think that the Head Alpha – the supposed unbiased leader of the pack – probably joins in. Perhaps it is for that reason that the Head Alpha, too busy bathing in Chanyeol’s misery, doesn’t seem to care when he remains absent from his patrol and doesn’t deliver his reports anymore.

If Chanyeol were a more dishonest version of himself, he might even milk his injuries to convince himself he needs a longer time in bed, but being trapped inside his hut is finally starting to do things to his wolf. He’s restless, agitated like he has an itch he can’t scratch, so when he finally gets around to shifting again, it happens so quickly that he doesn’t have chance to take his clothes off and leaves them in shreds all over the floor. He whines, sulks and noses forlornly at the remains before he slouches away at a mournful pace, dragging his paws across the ground and scuffling the dirt.

Despite everything, it feels good to run again. As a wolf, he excels, travelling faster than the other alphas, unable to mess up conversations. Everything is easier like this – the emotions, the communication, maybe even the mating, but he can’t be sure. Like this, he bares his teeth if he’s angry, puts his ears back if he’s apologising, whines when being affectionate. As a human, he has to articulate words and string together sentences that generally come out in the wrong tone and the wrong order. It’s easier to have fur and fleas over a great dung pile of self-doubt.  

His wolf form isn’t injured like his human form, but his muzzle feels unusually tender when he stops to sniff at the ground in several places to make sure the pack scent hasn’t worn off. He’s heading towards his cliff when another wolf bursts spryly from the undergrowth beside him, sun rippling off their sandy coat as they leap through the air and land crouched on their paws. Baekhyun comes bounding into his side, almost throwing him off balance as he does. Chanyeol uses the momentum to shove back, Baekhyun yapping at his behaviour with his tongue flopping sloppily from between his relaxed jaw. He looks far too much like an overly fluffy pup not to mentally swoon, so Chanyeol whines and digs his head in the soft fur of Baekhyun’s neck, easing him to a stop just as his cliff emerges through the trees.

Together, they trot to the cliff’s edge, Baekhyun running his muzzle from Chanyeol’s hip to his shoulder before ducking under his chin and drooping his tail. He lowers himself to the ground as much as he can and slides his entire body beneath Chanyeol’s head, writhing to get onto his back and finishing with his legs standing up laughably in the air. His goofy smile transcends forms as Chanyeol pounces across his torso and licks a fat, wet stripe across his left eye, lined with a deep black before the white tufts take over. Baekhyun wriggles and whines, feathery ears twitching as he gently pushes him away with his hind legs before he closes his eyes and starts to shrink. Chanyeol, still straddling Baekhyun’s figure, watches in awe as he changes from a wolf to a man. His fur recedes, and paws become hands that lay above his reassembling head. Baekhyun pants, a hint of his sharp canines pushing against his lips before they too pull back. Chanyeol has never seen something so unintentionally erotic: Baekhyun bearing himself with the eyes, teeth and intent of a wolf.

He noses at Baekhyun’s neck and drops his tail between his legs, sniffing around Baekhyun’s naked skin just to feel how smooth it is against his nose. As a wolf, he can smell everything on Baekhyun’s body, from the soap he uses to wash clothes and the flowers which hint at where he’s been, to the smoke of burning wood and the scent of roasting meat. When he licks out across Baekhyun’s chest, he can taste the tang of his sweat on his tongue and Baekhyun laughs at his grimace until he goes hunting in his armpit and makes him shriek instead. His smell is stronger there, all other scents overpowered by sweat. For some reason, Chanyeol likes it, Baekhyun’s musk.

Lissom but toned arms come winding around his neck, hands sinking into his hackles and giving him a pointed chorus of scratches. Chanyeol realises that Baekhyun is petting him, so he starts to animatedly wag his tail back and forth and push his head into the affection, akin to the kind he used to get from his grandmother whenever he successfully shifted during their practise sessions as a pup. Baekhyun seems delighted, eyes in half-moons and smile large and bubbly, but his joy becomes muted when he pulls his hands back to stroke Chanyeol’s face instead. His happiness depletes and the moment is gone, and with the way he handles Chanyeol so carefully it feels like it’s a goodbye.  

“It’s the full moon tonight,” he murmurs, crestfallen. Chanyeol’s heart thuds once and stops still for a beat. He had forgotten the full moon was today. Being bedridden and away from the sun has robbed him of his sense of time, even more so when he doesn’t receive meals until later or earlier than everyone else, sometimes not at all. Now he’s paying for it. He is possibly about to pay for everything.

He moves away from Baekhyun to lie parallel, the omega immediately coming to cuddle himself against his onyx chest and humming into the warmth he provides. Baekhyun’s skin feels amazing against own, like entering a cold pool in the middle of summer. Chanyeol nuzzles his snout into Baekhyun’s hair next, nostrils going fuzzy from it tickling.

“It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t worried,” Baekhyun goes on. “My mum has been lecturing me all morning. _You must be ready for Sehun._ I want to knock the words right out of her mouth. There’s no way the ancestors can choose him now.” His hands in Chanyeol’s fur become fists, but Chanyeol doesn’t protest. If anything, he agrees. “There can’t be.”

Chanyeol transitions, struggling past his wolf’s determination to remain as a wolf, and encloses his arms around Baekhyun in return. In this form, Baekhyun can better rest himself against him.

He wants to assure Baekhyun that the ancestors would never pick Sehun, not after what they’ve seen, but there’s the counter argument of them being the ones to break the pack rules. Who knows if the ancestors are cooing at them or condemning them from up there? Who knows which side they’ll take? He even spoke to Kyungsoo.

“What happens if they don’t pick me?” Chanyeol asks in a voice much too small for a body of his size.

Baekhyun clings even closer until he’s breathing in the air that Chanyeol breathes out. “I don’t want to think like that,” he whispers, tired and broken, as he buries his face into Chanyeol’s neck where no one can see it. Chanyeol thinks he might be fighting tears, and although he wants to tell Baekhyun to just let them out, he won’t judge him for it, he finds that he doesn’t have the words. He runs his hands up and down Baekhyun’s tense back muscles, feeling the fine hairs and the bumps of his spine under his fingertips, and ponders tomorrow. In one loop of the sun, he will either have Baekhyun for the rest of his life, or never have Baekhyun again.

“We should leave. We should leave if they pick Sehun,” Baekhyun announces against Chanyeol’s throat. “I’ll suffocate Sehun in his hut and come and meet you in the woods.”

“Baekhyun…”

“I will. Watch me. I don’t care.”

Chanyeol sighs deeply, his body causing Baekhyun to rise and fall in tandem with his lungs. At the end of the day, if the ancestors pick Sehun, there’s not much either of them can do.

 

 

 

 

 

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	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo! 
> 
> Finally the end is here! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy, and please read my note at the end! 
> 
> (As always, please excuse any typos!)
> 
> ~Amy(ᵔᴥᵔ)

 

 

 

Chanyeol throws the water cupped in his hands over the back of his head, his body bent double with the river lapping at his hips. The water is cool but not too cold, the perfect temperature for a hot June afternoon. Where on a regular day it would be relaxing, today Chanyeol finds that nothing can calm his nerves. In a matter of hours, the moon will be high in the sky, full and round, sealing his fate with a decision that may yet be overlooked. He stares at the rippling water reflecting the azure sky and sighs heavily, lowering his knees until he's submerged up to his shoulders. With a hand, he wipes at the droplets from his brows that seek refuge in his eyes, mind far away thinking of a tomorrow that may not come.

He hasn't seen Baekhyun since their last run in the forest. Baekshi has had him on a tight leash ever since his heat ended. Doubled it to two leashes when she realised Baekhyun had disappeared that day, coincidentally at the same time as Chanyeol. Although they tried to be discreet about the manner in which they reappeared in the village, two wolves coming down the same path with a suspicious interval of a couple of minutes had, needlessly to say, attracted attention. Sehun saw them return, but Chanyeol hadn't cared about him. Chanyeol had curled his upper lip and glared instead of shying away, for only the ancestors are allowed to judge him. Not Oh Sehun.

Underwater, his heart doesn't seem to thump as much. It relieves only a little of the pain in his chest, however, as the bond he shares with Baekhyun is constant no matter the temperature or distance. He feels strangely sick, but when he realises that he is showing no other signs of being about to vomit, he wonders whether the feeling is really his own. It has been told that emotions can be communicated through bonds, shared to help mates understand and care for one another. It wouldn't be a long shot to guess that Baekhyun is terrified of tonight. He will be with his mother now, possibly even dressing up in the white furs already and clawing at his own palms.

From what Chanyeol can gather of Baekhyun's state, he suspects that he won't be at the pack supper later on. No matter. Chanyeol won't be either. He intends to eat as his wolf tonight, if he can stomach anything. Raw and bloodied meat may provide him more courage, a confidence boost from grinding bones into powder in his jaw.

Over the last few nights, he has dreamt of better things. He has dreamt that Baekhyun was always his mate, that they were the ones courting instead of Sehun getting in the way. He's dreamt of Baekhyun's first heat, the sweet smell lingering on his furs, and he dreamt of what would come of it. He dreamt of running through the forest as his wolf and tackling the sandy omega into the ground before raining down on him with fat, wet licks and his cool, slippery nose.

He only dreams so much because he can't get any real sleep. Not in that bed when he's all alone, the echoes of Baekhyun's singing swimming through his ears, the ghosts of his fingers in his hair. Chanyeol hopes brighter things are to come, but hope only gets him so far. Baekshi has hopes too. So does Sehun, the Head Alpha, even the ancestors. Their hopes clash and overlap, and not everyone will have theirs realised. Chanyeol was never one of the lucky ones.

When the sky darkens from a lilac to an indigo, Chanyeol leaves to hunt. He traces down a fox that he crunches between his jaws, then stares at its frozen form for a long while before admitting that he can't bring himself to eat it. He can hear his grandmother in his head _tsk_ ing at him, calling him sloppy and wasteful and overly sensitive. That's what she always used to call him when he didn't eat his supper. For her sake, he gags around two mouthfuls before he gives up, loping his way back to the village with an unsettled gut. He leaves the fox for someone else. A lesser hunter, perhaps.

The pack is already abuzz down by the moonpost, the moonstone glinting brighter tonight than it does when the moon is a hair’s breadth away from being full. Though it's cloudy, the ancestors will use their rights to clear the sky, blinking down at them through the stars that twinkle so distantly against the mix of onyx and obsidian. Chanyeol stares up at them, fine tears already gathered in his eyes as he repeats the same prayers in his head. Then, aloud.

"Please pick me," he whispers. "Please. _Please."_

But _please_ doesn't feel like a strong enough word. Doesn't feel like it'll persuade the ancestors.

Chanyeol hangs his head and scrapes his feet along the ground as he heads to the village centre, swallowing anxiously at the sight of the pack before him. When those who are closest realise he's approaching, Chanyeol gets the strongest urge to back away and hide in his hut. If the ancestors want to pick him they'll find him there. They’ll have to.

He soldiers on despite himself, settling into the circle now forming around the moonpost with the rest of the pack. This time, he puts himself beside Yoona, thinking that her genuine smiles and encouragement may help both calm his nerves and soften the blow if he isn't chosen.

"Chanyeol," she lights up, turning towards him and blindly reaching out to grab his hand. "How are you feeling?"

Chanyeol briefly nods at Minhun on Yoona's other side before he responds. "Sick." His voice is strained, hand clammy in hers, but she keeps her face and smiles brightly.

"It's all going to be fine," she claims. Chanyeol would prefer it if she didn't. He knows full well that it's not all going to be fine. Even if the ancestors do pick him, Baekshi will make a scene and find some reason why their decision is invalid. Chanyeol wouldn't be surprised if Baekshi started claiming that part of Chanyeol had died and gone up to sway the vote.

Remembering what it was like to stand here only a month ago leaves Chanyeol feeling hollow. He has replayed that night in his head multiple times, sometimes making alterations depending on how he thinks things should have gone. But he always, _always,_ remembers how the moonlight touched Sehun first. His toes only, but still first. He has wracked his brain for an explanation, a reason as to why that may have happened, but always comes back more confused and with more insecurities than he had when he started.

"He's got a face like a smacked arse."

Chanyeol blinks from his daze when Minhun speaks, glancing at him fleetingly just to see who he's looking at. Chanyeol meets eyes directly with Sehun when he turns to his right, vaguely aware of Yoona hitting Minhun on the chest to tell him off. He feels pinned under Sehun's stare, like a rabbit that's noticed an approaching stampede just a few seconds too late. With the absence of a roaring campfire, the shadows exaggerate Sehun’s frown. The glower that thrives there is malicious, promising an intent to do more than just watch. It shakes Chanyeol to his core, forcing him to angle himself in the other direction, just in time to see the circle parting and Baekhyun tentatively walking through.

He looks even more captivating in white than he did last time. All Chanyeol longs for the moment he sees Baekhyun is to hold him, hug him against his chest and know that no one is doing him any harm. Baekshi follows, as the devil always does, and she sends a ghastly sneer Chanyeol's way before she returns her critique to the moonpost. She dares the moonstone, as they all dare it, to choose awry.

Baekhyun's steps are slow and wary before he stops in the centre of the pack, eyes glued to the ground to let intense gazes fall out of his line of sight. Chanyeol clenches his hands, only remembering he's holding hands with Yoona when she hisses out a startled " _ow_!" He grimaces, apologises, and holds her hand more gently.

The Head Alpha steps forward, the spotted pelt of a lynx thrown over his shoulder like a sash. "Pack!" he calls with both his hands raised. He brings silence to the buzzing murmurs, reins in all the attention for himself, and with a seemingly forced smile, begins his speech. "Midnight is soon upon us! Our Baekhyun, who came of age before the last moon, will be mated tonight, once and for all! The ancestors will choose him an alpha, a mate to protect and serve him for life. We are all joined in wishing him well as he starts this new chapter. May the will of the ancestors be known and unanimous. May they shine the moonlight on the alpha who is worthy."

Chanyeol cringes at _unanimous,_ casting one final glance to the sky, beseeching the ancestors to choose him. To choose right for Baekhyun. His hand clamps around Yoona's fingers yet again, knuckles turned white, as the clouds part to free the moon. It gleams brightly with the power of the ancestors, their will written in the stars. Chanyeol likens it to a great eye, each cloud that passes a blink, watching over them the same as a loving mother would – or perhaps, a condescending father.

Their families are up there, rallying their power to select the right alpha. If it must be unanimous, Chanyeol hopes that Baekhyun’s father would never pick a man like Oh Sehun for his son. Chanyeol may be a renegade of sorts, but at least he isn’t heartless. He would willingly devote his life to treating him right.

Everything glows a sharp silver for a moment, the sheen not unlike the frost of the first snow, only warm. Then the light leaves people’s faces and the trees, collecting itself within the confines of the moonstone where it races and strengthens, darkening the world around them. Chanyeol sucks in a breath as colours scatter across Baekhyun's face and body, his furs glowing light pinks and sunset purples as the different colours dance through the air. Flecks catch on his eyes and Chanyeol watches as Baekhyun shies away, perhaps rejecting more than just the kaleidoscope that has settled across his face. He seems teary, but it could just be a trick of the light.

Streaks of green and yellow shoot like lightning through the moonstone so quickly that the different colours merge to form one single, exceptional white. Distinct hues comingle in braids, strands wrapping around one another until they’re indistinguishable with the moonstone. They branch out, the moonstone sheathed by a swaying aureole with incandescent petals that glint like threads of silver.

Chanyeol bites down on his lips to prepare himself for the beams, the one that will do the ancestor's bidding. The moonstone will burst soon, long, elegant tendrils of moonlight arching toward the ground to behold the chosen one and bestow upon them the rights to the omega in question.          

But no such light ever comes.

The moonstone gets brighter and brighter until the corona has spread ten times further than is considered normal, reaching an uncharacteristic breadth that swallows the nights sky and writhes like the storming waves of the sea beyond the mountains. Their own sun amidst the darkness leaves the pack scrambling to shield their eyes to save themselves from going blind, gasps and cries charging the air as omegas and alphas bodily shield their children. Everywhere is lit with such a stark and intense white that Baekhyun disappears completely where he stands beneath it, outshone a million times over and thrown into a thick, impenetrable darkness.

Chanyeol blinks into nothing. He waits for the beam to appear, for a shaft of light to burst from the stone and splatter on the ground, for it brush against someone’s toes. He stares fiercely at where he remembers Sehun standing, but the cool sun is too overpowering to be sure he’s looking in the right direction. All he can see is the thrashing talons of the moonstone in the corner of his eye, licking out against the pack like the lashes of a whip. Is this the ancestors condemning his actions? Robbing him of his eyes so he may never look upon the omega he went rogue for? Chanyeol forces himself to see to no avail, fretting over whether the moonstone is polluting his vision to cause harm to Baekhyun beneath a cloak of shadows.  

And then, all goes dark. The lustre of the moonstone smothers itself. A single, black cloud covers the moon in the sky, nothing but the traces of a rainbow sprinting circles within the stone remaining.

Chanyeol furiously blinks his eyesight back to life, digging his knuckles into his tear ducts and grinding to get rid of the black spots. When he has vision, the first person he checks is Baekhyun, who he finds slowly recovering and standing up from a foetal position, curled at the base of the moonpost to protect himself. Then, Sehun, who to Chanyeol's inward delight looks just as lost and puzzled as he is.

Panic follows. Baekhyun whirls around on the spot, searching for an answer that nobody has. He ends up staring intently at Chanyeol, hunting for moonlight that isn't there.

The ancestors have not chosen him a mate.

A beat of fraught silence, and then: "No alpha was chosen," the Head Alpha says lowly, Chanyeol's ears homed in on the strangled cry Baekhyun fails to abort in time. His frightened eyes, glassy with the fear of the unknown, turn to him, and all Chanyeol can do is longingly look back. He has no answers to offer, no comfort to give. If anything, Chanyeol is just as distraught as he is. They have both possibly just lost their mates.

The pack remains silent. No one knows what to say or where to go from here. Not even Sehun or Baekshi can make a comment which is unfittingly satisfying. They look just as lost as the rest of them.

"It's going to be alright, Chanyeol," Yoona whispers so faintly that Chanyeol almost doesn't catch it. He squeezes her hand as best as he can, what with his sweat making his grip slippery, and tries to control the trembles he feels all over. His knees are shaking back and forth and his insides feel deathly cold, heartbeat so loud in his ears that every other sound is fuzzy. What happens now?

It's all uncertain until the Head Alpha speaks. "The ancestors must want us to choose for ourselves."

And all of a sudden, Chanyeol feels dizzy.

"They must still be undecided. If they cannot provide us a sound decision, then they must have given us the right to choose. The pack will decide upon Baekhyun's alpha."

Baekhyun looks frantic, face blanched, a hand to his stomach. Chanyeol shares his nausea, concealing a wretch behind his forearm and turning in towards Yoona. He can't face the pack. He can't. The final decision falls into the hands of the Head Alpha. There is no way he would choose Chanyeol over his own son.

"Yoona, I'm going to be sick," Chanyeol groans into her shoulder.

"It's alright, Chanyeol. It's alright," she hushes him with a soft touch of her free hand, lying.

"I choose Sehun for my son!" Baekshi's shout thunders through the quiet like a landslide, uprooting Chanyeol where he stands and sending him cascading down towards nothingness. The world only gets darker from here, as Chanyeol closes his eyes and fights back the urge to throw up down Yoona's back like a raging newborn.

"Sehun is a good match," says someone from around Chanyeol, followed by hums of agreement.

"And they were courting!" points out another.

Yoona squeezes his hand back just as hard, bringing Chanyeol back to life. He looks up, breeze cool against his face, and breathes an air of clarity back into his lungs. He sees the Head Alpha nodding in feigned contemplation at Baekshi's demands, and decides that he has had enough.

"No!" is out of his mouth without a second thought. Chanyeol releases Yoona's hand and strides forwards to face the pack, skin prickling as fifty pairs of keen eyes turn scrutinise his every move. "Whether you want to accept it or not, on the last full moon I was chosen as Baekhyun's mate. The moonlight came to me, not Sehun. They chose _me."_ He starts off unsteadily but grows in confidence with every word, staring down the Head Alpha who regards him with contempt. "They want me to be Baekhyun's mate. And I want that too."

"You are wrong! You are the only one who wants that," Baekshi hisses, Chanyeol spinning around to watch her draw closer, her teeth bared in another one of her beastly snarls.

"He's not!" Baekhyun protests off to the side, admission ignored by Baekshi and the rest when Sehun steps forward in one bold motion. Chanyeol is torn between who to focus on, only for a moment.

"I'll fight you for him, Chanyeol," Sehun says, loud enough for all to hear, and Chanyeol's blood runs cold. He turns to face Sehun head-on, complexion paling until he looks as ghastly as he feels. "To the death."

The world fades away. Chanyeol thinks he's fainted until he notices he can still see Sehun's smirk through the gloom of his mind, vision tunnelling to make it his only focus. A heave tickles the back of his throat, disbelief a hurricane in his mind that leaves him suspended while the pack bustles in surprise. Yoona yells something, her words not enough to distract Chanyeol from Sehun's baleful eyes. It sounds like he’s underwater, though his heartbeat is the loudest and clearest it has ever been as it stamps around his head.

Sehun stretches his neck from left to right and cracks his knuckles, the popping of his bones ricocheting between Chanyeol’s ears. Chanyeol stumbles when someone gives him a careless shove from behind, urging him closer towards where his competition is waiting, seemingly triumphant already. His eyes trail over the flexing of Sehun’s muscles, the sureness of his step, the sheer determination in his eyes, and it slowly starts to settle across Chanyeol’s chest that he’s not going to win. He’s going to be bludgeoned, beaten and bloodied by either Sehun’s hands or Sehun’s jaw, for all the pack to see. There is no honour in a death like that. No dignity. Chanyeol has always been an outsider, but he has never wanted to die as one.

There are a million other ways they could deal with this. For one, they could let Baekhyun choose an alpha for himself, but Chanyeol supposes bitterly that that would be too easy. Too obvious.

“Sehun,” he whispers at a loss, imploring the other alpha to change his mind. “We don’t have to fight like this.” He knows the pack is watching him grovelling for mercy, but it is a shame that he is too downtrodden to truly feel. At this point, cowardice is sweeter than stupidity. There’s no point in being brave if he could lose what he’s fighting for anyway.

“Yes, we do,” Sehun cuts back only a beat later, now rotating his wrists and shoulders to loosen his joints up. He’s either preparing to shift or getting ready to throw some hefty punches. Chanyeol doesn’t know which way he’d fare better, though if he were a wolf at least he would have his speed on his side. The Head Alpha will know that, and as he steps forward, looking the least bit perplexed or even guilty, he quells the pack once again.

“It is decided,” he states, and Chanyeol hangs his head. Adrenalin runs through him but it’s not enough; all it does is make him tremble and shake like a pup out in the snow, vulnerable to the most menial of predators. “On the count of three, the both of you will begin to fight to death in your human form. There is to be no shifting, no leaving the circle, and no yielding. Die with honour.”

Chanyeol feels like he only has three seconds to live. After those are up, it’s just a waiting game. Wait for the end to come by Sehun’s hands. Wait to die to the sight of Sehun’s staring complacently down at him, all self-satisfied and smug. Chanyeol doesn’t know how else he can put up a fight. The Head Alpha will not overrule his decision for Chanyeol when it goes against everything he wants.

The pack starts to writhe like treetops caught in the path of the wind, some cheering out in support of the announcement and others screaming in outrage for it to be stopped. Yoona’s voice gets lost, Minhun is held back when he tries to march forwards, and amidst it all, Baekhyun is scratching at his mother’s arms that are cinched firmly around his waist, begging for the Head Alpha to find another way. Baekshi hisses at him to shut up, and Chanyeol vaguely acknowledges the harsh elbow Baekhyun sends into her ribs in defiance. She chokes him after that, squeezing his stomach so tight that he splutters. If anything, Chanyeol will fight with the rage Baekshi has thrust upon him. He’ll fight, even if he’ll lose.

“One.”

Baekhyun is shouting his name, voice tumbling from his mouth so hurriedly that it cracks and crumbles when it knocks against his lips. He shouts after the Head Alpha next but he’s ignored. Chanyeol rubs his hands together timidly, staring at Sehun readying for a death match. Again, it dawns on him. _This is it._ He tries to tell himself that he should make it count. Go out and leave Sehun with a nasty scar to always remember him by. But the shock and the heartbreak has him feeling weaker in ways he’s never felt before.

“Two.”

Sehun lowers into a pounce, the springs in his feet ready to fling himself forwards. Chanyeol stares death in the face and wonders when it became so hideously ugly.

“Thr—”

“What a load of _codswallop!”_ someone caws, voice piercing and aged, weathered in a way Chanyeol finds familiar. It seems to freeze time – the roars of the pack, the Head Alpha’s countdown and Chanyeol’s thundering heart all seized in one sweep. He spins on the spot and stares directly into pale blue eyes that used to be a warm yellow and finds himself wondering if he has already died.

The pack makes way, breaking the circle at the insistence of his grandmother’s illuminated walking stick bashing against their ankles. She looks exactly the same as Chanyeol remembers her: covered in yarn shawls and bear hides, a long thick skirt and a small sack tied to a belt around her hips, filled with a tooth from every one of the animals she killed in her lifetime. Her skin is still wrinkled like an old pelt, saggy down the middle of her neck and droopy on either side of her cracked lips. She has dimples too, Chanyeol remembers vividly, but she’s not smiling to show them off. In fact, she looks immeasurably angry.

Aside from all the familiarities, her whole figure is a ghostly blue. Her very being releases light, white sparks bursting on the floor every time she plants down her cane, the ground rippling with glittering puddles of blue beneath her footsteps. Her skin glows very much like it did in life, with a youthful playfulness that could never be tainted, and Chanyeol gawps at the fine wisps of light that dance around her outline as she walks up to him.

Chanyeol knows she’s dead. She’s been dead for years. And yet here she is, right in front of him. Not in the flesh, but in the moonlight.

“You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” she cries, voice louder than the Head Alpha’s even in death. The pack is aghast, gaping at her with dumb open mouths as she treads carefully towards the moonpost with her signature hobble, leaning greatly on her stick as she did in life with her left foot curled in.

“This is a sham if there ever was one. One big bloody mess!” She turns her icy glare to Sehun and his father stood a few steps behind. Chanyeol gulps as she comes limping past him, clearly on a mission. Out of nowhere, he has the instinctual urge to help her walk, but he stops himself at the last moment, wondering whether his helping hands would just fall straight through the crook of her arm.

“Fighting to the death? What a load of utter rubbish!” Bora bellows, stomping up to Sehun and snarling in his face. “Did you all forget,” she continues, turning to face the pack, “that we see _everything_ up there? We hear everything too. There is _no_ escaping us. You think you’re some kind of god,” she spits at the Head Alpha. “Well, if I had the right and the means, I’d take you right back up there with me! And up there, we’d silence you for the rest of your life! We’d make it hell. Your ancestors are ashamed!”

Chanyeol has never seen the Head Alpha cower before, but he’s not likely to forget it, watching with a sense of satisfaction as his grandma tears him to shreds for the entire pack to see.

“I’ll have you all know, that we will never tolerate this again,” she roars, turning her attention back to Sehun. “It was your mother, that bloody twit of a woman, who decided last month that she wanted to say hello.” She looks between the Head Alpha and his offspring, exasperated but still fuming. “Did you really think we’d pick you,” she then sneers at Sehun again, “when you were and never will be worthy?”

Sehun visibly shrinks, curling into himself like a hedgehog would as he sends a helpless glance to his father. Bora brandishes her surprisingly solid cane and thwacks him with it. “You look at me when I’m talking to you, boy.” She glowers. “Like mother like son. If I could have my way, the moonlight will never touch more than your toes again, and your mother most certainly _will not_ be allowed to say hello again either, that dumb fool. But I see now that the roots of the weeds run much, much deeper than what I see on the surface,” she declares, still in the possession of the pack’s full attention. She has always stolen it so effortlessly, as Chanyeol recalls, that it makes sense for her to still be able to do it from another plane entirely.

“We gave our verdict.” She turns her narrowed, threatening eyes to the Head Alpha. “ _Unanimously._ And yet you, _you,”_ she jabs an angry, hooked finger at him, “went against our decree because it didn’t fit your personal preferences. You have misled the entire pack with your biased bigotry so carelessly that I and the rest of the ancestors decided you do not deserve the title of Head Alpha any longer. When you die, Sejun, your rat of a boy over here will _not_ be your successor. After the full moon of your death, we’ll choose a new family to lead the pack. One who won’t have to work hard in doing better than _you_. And rest assured, we were _all_ in agreement on that.”

She spits at his feet before she swirls around, the moonlight twinkling in her skirts. “And _you._ ” She devours Baekshi next, and Chanyeol wishes he was lucid enough to properly enjoy this moment. Perhaps pitch in, too.

“You’ve always been a vile one, haven’t you, Baekshi? Trampling all over your son like that. I’ll have you know that your husband cannot bear to even _look_ at you anymore.”

Baekshi looks like she wants to argue, but her words are silenced when Bora once again raises her cane and smacks the end of it against her forearm. Only then does Baekshi let Baekhyun out of her hold. Chanyeol watches as Baekhyun rubs his sore ribs, his steps rushed as he strives to put distance between him and his mother. He takes refuge once again at the base of the moonpost, and meets Chanyeol’s eyes for only a second before he turns back to the source of the blue light that casts a glow across his face.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” the pack grandmother growls. “To _all_ of you. You are never to go against the will of the ancestors. Who we choose, we choose _._ Unanimously _._ You all act as if we were having a great amount of difficultly in choosing between Sehun and Chanyeol, or any other unmated alpha for that matter, when really, there is no competition at all. Sehun, dear,” her gaze pierces him over her shoulder, “you are going to have to be one hell of a good pup to get an omega now.

“But seeing as you all seem to think we don’t have the right to choose anymore – or most of you, at least – why don’t we do things differently just this once, and let the omega decide on his alpha? I think you will then find that we are rather on the same tapestry, and that is why we know _best._ We see all. We hear all. We know all. Don’t any of you ever dare to question, discredit or undermine our judgements again.”

The pack nods slowly, then with more conviction. The Head Alpha, Baekshi and Sehun, however, all drop their faces in shame.

“Now then.” Bora turns to Baekhyun in another glimmer of moonlight, sparks scattering like tumbling berries from under her footsteps as she carefully approaches him with her weakened leg. “Baekhyun, who do you choose to take as your mate?”

Chanyeol rips his eyes from his grandmother’s luminescent figure to behold the omega in white. His breath catches in his throat, panicking for a moment, until Baekhyun stares directly back at him and presents to him his confidence.

“Chanyeol,” he breathes without hesitation, as if Chanyeol’s name has been on the tip of his tongue the entire time, just waiting for the moment it could fly the nest. Chanyeol’s heart pounds with relief at the mention of his name. He rubs his sweaty palms against his shorts and shuffles his weight around to expel the jitters from his system, only vaguely aware of what this all means. Bora smiles knowingly. “I choose Chanyeol.”

“Very well,” she grins, and finally turns to look Chanyeol in the eye. He freezes on the spot, captivated by the love he finds in her honest, transparent gaze. If her cane is solid, the rest of her must be solid too, and he so wants to hug her again. Wrap his arms around her until she’s cocooned within his adoring grasp. She raised him from a pup, taught him how to shift into his wolf, how to talk, walk, how to love himself. He is everything he is now thanks to her, and he wells up at her pride as she takes a step towards him.

“It’s decided,” she says more quietly, as if she is only talking to him. “Our Baekhyun will become mates with our Chanyeollie.” Chanyeol whines low in his throat at the nickname and tries to drop his gaze in thanks, but finds that he can’t tear himself away. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get to see her again. As far as he is aware, the ancestors have never done something like this before. Never walked the living earth without a beating heart. For her to be here, physically in front of him, is simply unthinkable. And to know she did it for him – it makes Chanyeol want to burrow his face into her neck and never let her go again.

There are unspoken words on her lips, but Chanyeol hears them all the same. She still loves him, even though he broke the rules. She almost looks proud. “ _Rascal_ ,” she utters under her breath with the faint hint of a smirk, and Chanyeol fights to smile through the emotion that has smacked into him face-first, leaving his lips crumpled as he forces back the tears. Her gaze leaves him much too soon, an emptiness fouling his chest, and she’s back to regarding the pack. Her steely gaze commands surrender wherever she turns.

“If I hear one negative word spoken about them or see any of you trying to keep them apart, I shall let my wrath descend upon you. This pack deserves greater wolves. I do not expect I shall have to project ever again,” she warns, bowing her chin to intensify her glare. “I expect obedience from each and every one of you. Is that clear?” The pack nods again – not enough. “I said, _is that clear?”_

“Yes, grandmother,” leaves everyone’s lips, even Chanyeol’s, and Bora smiles her crooked smile with accomplishment.

“Now, let me rest in some god damn peace,” she grumbles bitterly. “I think I’ve earned it.”

She doesn’t look at him one last time. He supposes she can’t show favour, otherwise everyone else in the pack might start demanding their own ancestors come down for a quick conversation. It doesn’t hurt as much though, saying goodbye for a second time. Now that he’s seen it, now that he knows she is really up there, he feels like he hasn’t lost her at all.

The cloud blocking the moon glides away as she dodders back into the forest from whence she came. A glow follows her, visible through the trees, until the moon once again disappears, her with it. Chanyeol blinks to make sure he’s still awake and not dreaming. The fight between Sehun and him may have started, and Sehun could have punched him so hard that he started to hallucinate. But no. It is written all over the packs’ face. They are as every bit as confused, shocked and speechless as he is.

A sharp, jerky movement catches his eye, and Chanyeol snaps his head up to see Baekhyun resolutely striding towards him. He grabs his hand, arguably with a bit too much force, and parts his lips to release the word “Alpha.” It sends tingles down Chanyeol’s spine, his mind only just catching up to what this all means. Baekhyun, dressed in the white traditional mating furs passed down over hundreds of years through the pack, has been chosen to be his omega, both by the ancestors and of his own volition.

Chanyeol clutches onto the hand in his hold and doesn’t veer his eyes away from Baekhyun’s as he starts to draw them backwards. They leave the pack stood timeless and head for the confines of his hut to become a mated pair.

Baekhyun will move in with him now. In the morning, he will probably return to his old family hut to collect his things, never to sleep a wink in there again. Chanyeol is excited to finally have Baekhyun’s laughter and joy under his roof, breathing life into the dull furs of his furniture and drab shades of his (lacking) decorations. He knows it’s not much. He has a couch and a bed, a nightstand with some of Yoona’s candles on and a basket of furs against the wall. But he hopes it’s enough.

Baekhyun takes his time in giving himself a tour of the two rooms. There’s not a great deal to explore, so what there is he examines in meticulous detail, dragging the tips of his fingers over every surface within his reach. He’s smiling to himself, Chanyeol notices, and that puts his heart to rest until Baekhyun gets to the bed and looks back at him with something foreign lurking in his eyes.

Chanyeol swallows, goosebumps rising along his arms and up the back of his neck. They have seen each other naked, sure, but never naked like _that._ He’s already embarrassed thinking about the faces he’ll pull, the noises he’ll make, how awkward it is probably going to be. He’ll die of it come morning – the memory of involuntary groans parting his lips and accidentally looking directly at Baekhyun’s eyes while doing so. Baekhyun seems to see straight through him.

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to. We can wait.”

Chanyeol looks up at him, startled, and shakes his head. “No. We have to. It’s custom.”

Snorting, Baekhyun closes the distance between them. “Like we haven’t broken enough customs already.”

He’s grinning, and makes it easy when he runs his palms up Chanyeol’s chest and invites him down for a kiss. It’s sweet and promising, but proves to make Chanyeol more anxious. Kisses will fall elsewhere tonight, across unmapped skin in intimate places. What if he doesn’t do it right?

“I can wait,” Baekhyun whispers into his mouth while crowding into his personal space. “It’s not like we’re in a hurry. The pack can’t separate us anymore.”

The white vest has left Baekhyun’s arms bare, the heat and his fine hairs grazing against Chanyeol’s skin when he wraps him in his arms.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol hums. “ _The ancestors see everything_.” After a moment, that statement clicks. “Wait—Do you think they watch?”

Baekhyun looks mildly annoyed, eyes resting just past Chanyeol’s head before he moves them back with a hard stare. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. But if they are,” he goes on slowly, a lilt to his tone, “they had better turn away.” They stare at each other in silence for a moment, giving the ancestors time to avert their eyes and shut their ears, and then they start to smile slyly, the corners of their mouths sneakily curling up as if sharing an inside joke.

“You want to, don’t you?” Chanyeol asks softly, bending his neck so he can nose at Baekhyun’s face like he would if he were his wolf. He has never felt softer skin in all his life.

“Yeah, I do,” Baekhyun hums in reply, closing his eyes at Chanyeol’s touch before blindly kissing whatever is in front of him – Chanyeol’s jaw. It’s a feathery kiss, one that is barely there, but it makes Chanyeol blush. He leans down to bury his face in Baekhyun’s neck, shivering at the warm exhales that fan across his nape.

“I do too,” he says, Baekhyun’s hands reluctantly leaving him, followed by movement in his legs. When Chanyeol pulls back and lets himself look, he realises that his mate is stripping. The sight sends heat flourishing across his face and down his spine while the familiar lines of his bones are uncovered. It feels like he’s seeing Baekhyun’s body for the first time again, when in truth, he is only seeing it in a different light.

The white furs are neatly draped over the arm of the couch by a sure hand, and then Baekhyun is staring at him unabashedly with a roseate hue blooming across his cheeks. There he stands, as naked as the day he first transitioned, and suddenly there is a lump in Chanyeol’s throat. Every muscle on Baekhyun’s body is defined, every bone broad and long, every angle sharp and prominent. It doesn’t take a second glance to see that he is rosy all over, skin shining discreetly from the perspiration that had gathered beneath his clothes. Chanyeol’s eyes want to drop lower, to where he can see the tease of black hair, but he forces himself to keep a level head. It is then that he realises Baekhyun is staring expectantly at him. Baekhyun _tsks_ and rolls his eyes, making to grab the hem of Chanyeol’s top.

“I can do it,” Chanyeol breathes hurriedly, laying his hands over Baekhyun’s to ease them away. They are fumbling over each other like scuffling pups, learning their abilities with a play fight. Chanyeol knew this would be awkward. He was counting on it, in fact. But there’s one thing he knows for certain: if he acts confident, soon enough he’ll start to believe it, and maybe they can get through this first time with jokes and laughter instead of embarrassment and worry.

Chanyeol takes hold of Baekhyun’s hands instead of just pushing them away, slowly starting to walk him back towards the bed. Baekhyun is watching him intently the entire time, tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip before he smirks.

“I’m not letting you keep your clothes on,” Baekhyun teases, and this time it is Chanyeol who rolls his eyes. “I can’t get to your knot that way.”

The alpha strangles a surprised shout at the base of his throat and shoves Baekhyun away from him, rousing a hearty laugh from his chest. “You can be so inappropriate sometimes.”

“I’m allowed to be,” challenges Baekhyun, sauntering back up to him and looping his arms around Chanyeol’s waist. “We’re mates now.” He hums the words directly against Chanyeol’s lips while his hands deviously sneak below Chanyeol’s bearskin shorts. Chanyeol hisses at the cool palms pressing their way over his bare backside before he reaches for the ties at his hips to get rid of the fur altogether. Again, it’s nothing Baekhyun hasn’t seen before, but he’s never felt so naked.

“Mates.”

The word stirs something inside him. Chanyeol finds his breath getting lodged in his throat, the rest of him lost in Baekhyun’s dripping gaze. Their next kiss is heavily impassioned and nothing like the ones they’ve shared before. Chaste could not be more of an opposite as Baekhyun drives his tongue into Chanyeol’s mouth, hands all but clawing at Chanyeol’s hips when his shorts finally drop to the ground. He scratches and tears at his skin without holding back, then knocks him back onto the bed and climbs into his lap. Their arousals, exposed to the chilly summer air, brush against each other unexpectedly, sending a sizzling jolt through the heart of Chanyeol’s body. He hisses like spitting meat, taking Baekhyun in his arms and urging him closer so he can kiss him again.

Confidence, he reminds himself. Be confident. So with one last suck to Baekhyun’s bottom lip, he departs for his throat. Baekhyun groans then, for the first time, and Chanyeol tries his hardest to keep himself calm. He has Baekhyun’s hands grappling with his hair, his warm body nestled in his lap, his stifling breath falling against his ear. It’s an enormous sensory overload, so mind-numbing that Chanyeol almost forgets to move, but the constant prickling of his scalp at Baekhyun’s insistent tugs is enough to keep a least half of his mind present.

So as to not stray, Chanyeol runs his hands up and down Baekhyun’s back and further, sinking his fingertips into the hard muscle that armours his ribcage and spine before delving deeper and startling at something wet and smooth against his hand. He withdraws his face from Baekhyun’s reddening throat, the sudden wash of cool air making him lightheaded, to concentrate on the substance that has pooled in the creases of his palm. It’s not dissimilar to honey, though it has a runnier consistency, and while he ponders over the sheer heat of it in his hand, Baekhyun starts to lather his shoulder with sloppy kisses.

Chanyeol’s hand only gets wetter, so he smears what he holds over Baekhyun’s backside and clamps into it, Baekhyun biting a moan into his skin. It must be his slick, and when Chanyeol trails his fingertips towards where he knows it comes from, he feels Baekhyun pulsing. He is dilated more than enough, his skin tender when Chanyeol touches him as he shoots right up with a gasp. Chanyeol grins, Baekhyun narrows his eyes, then kisses him and guides Chanyeol’s hand more confidently to where it’s sensitive. He shudders against Chanyeol’s mouth, whining as if he were his wolf, and then he’s reaching for Chanyeol’s cock.

“How do you want to do this?” Baekhyun whispers urgently, his hand glossing over Chanyeol’s head and causing his mind to empty. “Because of your knot.” It’s true that an alpha’s knot stays engorged after release, locking them to the omega for what can sometimes be a long, wearisome period of time. It is best that they’re in a comfortable position for when it happens. Chanyeol has no idea what his knot is like, whether it be temperamental, lax or even stubborn, but bringing discomfort to Baekhyun is the last thing he wants to do tonight.

“Like this is fine,” he says without really thinking of an alternative, eyes glued to the wet, shimmering strings of slick that have webbed between their bodies from Baekhyun’s swinging hips. It’s strangely beautiful, oddly elegant, and Chanyeol reckons it is akin to what their bond would look like if it were tangible – a million tiny lines threaded between them, stitching them together. Out of curiosity alone, he takes the tip of his finger to one and winds it around his nail, then swirling it over one of Baekhyun’s pebbled nipples to a sultry groan of gratification.

It’s not long before they’re fumbling again, only this time, it’s with great, bashful smiles that bring ease to Chanyeol’s racing heart. “Feels weird,” Baekhyun hums once Chanyeol’s inside, and Chanyeol bursts out laughing. He can tell that Baekhyun is feeling a little timid, so he makes a point of only looking at his face and not his body, letting his hands hungrily explore it for them.

Baekhyun looks incredible like this: breathless with sweat matting his hair and Chanyeol’s bruises flowering down his neck. He’s the most handsome thing Chanyeol’s has ever seen, the most exquisite thing he’s ever felt. And it is exquisite. Exquisite in the way Baekhyun’s body hugs him in a soft warmth, in the way his arms hang naturally around his neck in a relaxed embrace, in the way his eyes gaze over Chanyeol thoughtfully, appreciatively, in wonder. Chanyeol hopes Baekhyun knows how he feels too.

He grunts properly for the first time at a sharp twinge of pleasure, Baekhyun’s face darkening and his smile moving aside to allow him to bite his lip. Chanyeol feels embarrassed, the noise playing over and over in his head as he analyses the way his voice broke, what pitch it was and how long it lasted. Baekhyun cups his face to distract him, squinting his eyes and smirking as he continues to rock back and forth, taking Chanyeol towards the clouds.

“You should make that noise more often,” he says teasingly, and Chanyeol dies from embarrassment.  

It feels nice. To be this close with Baekhyun was all he ever wanted. Baekhyun being his mate is just an added bonus. It does bring him a great deal of satisfaction to know that Sehun lost, but right now he doesn’t care about Sehun. He doesn’t care about how he almost died, how Sehun wanted to claw his throat out and take Baekhyun against his will. There will come a time for Chanyeol’s victory and Sehun’s defeat to be realised without shellshock and astral beings, but now the hour is dedicated to Baekhyun and Baekhyun alone. To loving him and making him feel good, to mating him and kissing him goodnight.

They move to lie down when Baekhyun says he’s starting to feel Chanyeol’s knot swell at the base of his length. From behind, Chanyeol wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s torso, the omega’s back to his chest, and picks up the rhythm again. It is just as exhausting as sprinting a patrol, only infinite times more rewarding. He buries his nose into the crook between Baekhyun’s neck and shoulder and inhales his sweat, hands caressing his stomach where he can feel Baekhyun’s every shuddering breath.

Baekhyun moans serenely into the pillow while swinging his hips back so their pelvises glue together with the slick that escapes, hot and heavy. Chanyeol slides his hand beneath Baekhyun’s knee and hoists his leg up, angling it so that Baekhyun has to lean back against his body for support, so he can thrust into him with more certainty.

His abdominal muscles are on the verge of cramping and the dead weight of Baekhyun’s leg strains his arm, but Chanyeol doesn’t have a single thought about stopping or repositioning himself. He can feel the end, arguably his first ever real end, and he’s too impatient to let it slip through his fingers like water when it is now so solid in his grasp.

Baekhyun twists his head around off the pillow, lidded eyes watching Chanyeol closely as he gasps through parted lips, darker in colour from the blood rush. Chanyeol’s knot makes it harder to move, but he never breaks the eye contact. He gazes at Baekhyun, even after Baekhyun has closed his eyes to meet his own peak, and only breaks his stare when he stoops his neck down to kiss him, Baekhyun’s lips unresponsive as he quivers.

The sight of Baekhyun unravelling has his knot blowing up. His thrusts become shallow, the large swell catching in Baekhyun’s body until he can only move an inch back and forth. He gasps when he feels it – the throbbing of his length as it prepares to release. It builds and builds, until his face is mangled in concentration trying to keep himself together, and then it blows, hips jerking in quick succession, safely sheathed within Baekhyun’s gentle heat.

Baekhyun’s heart drums against his palm, the beat relaxing as Chanyeol idly massages his chest. He hums gladly when he feels Baekhyun’s hand stroking through his hair. It’s like he’s petting him, grooming him, and Chanyeol thrives under the attention.

“Mate,” Baekhyun says, and Chanyeol could cry, burrowing his face deep into Baekhyun’s neck again to chase away the oncoming tears. Baekhyun chuckles lowly, scratching behind Chanyeol’s ear with more certainty. “Mate,” he hums again, tugging on Chanyeol’s earlobe to get him to come out of hiding. “Look at me.”

Chanyeol, despite his embarrassment, does as Baekhyun says. He’s greeted with a smile, sweet eyes, and dewy skin, greeted with his partner for life. “Mate,” murmurs Chanyeol, nuzzling their noses together and groaning when his knot shifts. He doesn’t know how long it will take to go down, whether it be a matter of minutes or a couple of hours, but he likes this. Being close to Baekhyun, feeling the last of his thrumming heartbeat coursing beneath his skin as it settles.

“We’re each other’s now,” Baekhyun whispers faintly, clasping Chanyeol’s hand and entwining their fingers, touch firm but still gentle. He kisses Chanyeol’s knuckles, his jaw, his mouth. Then grinds himself back on the knot just to make Chanyeol shiver. Chanyeol scowls, playful, and nips at his shoulder, but finds that his knot has gone down somewhat. He warns Baekhyun before he attempts to pull out, and rubs his lower stomach when he hisses through his teeth in pain.

“Sorry,” he says softly, mouthing once at Baekhyun’s temple, but Baekhyun doesn’t seem to mind, even if it was much too early to separate. They should have basked longer, perhaps, but the slick between them is starting to go cold against their skin. Chanyeol runs a hand down Baekhyun’s back and grimaces at the tackiness that sticks to his palm.  

They head out to the river behind the hut and wash their bodies of smells and substances, whiling away the remnants of night treading water and admiring the last of the moonlight. The clouds have all cleared and the sun will come up soon, the moon paling in a lightening sky that gleams gold on the horizon. It finally begins to sink in that the full moon has passed. That Baekhyun is now his mate and no one in the pack is allowed to do anything about it. That his grandmother isn’t going to burst out of the trees again and decide to take everything back.

Chanyeol finds himself smiling at Baekhyun rolling in the water, carefree and jubilant like a young pup discovering the river for the first time. Inside his chest, contentment swells, and Chanyeol feels their bond singing through his veins in chorus with his heartbeat. It brings tingles to his fingertips and goosebumps across his shoulders, a pitter-patter of shooting stars that fall against his skin. He wades towards Baekhyun and presses his back to his chest, embracing him from behind and watching the sunrise from over his shoulder.

In the early dawn, they laze together in the water a little longer before they traipse back to the riverbank hand in hand. Baekhyun is all smiles and sparkling eyes when Chanyeol plucks him a buttercup from the grass lain around the bases of the trees. He eases it behind Baekhyun's ear, admiring how the yellow petals bring out the gold of his gaze, and decides that this is what true happiness feels like – staring into the eyes of someone you can call your mate, someone who wants to wake up to you every morning and go to sleep beside you every night, and knowing full well that everything you're feeling, they're feeling too.

 

 

 

 

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[AFF Version](http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1285310/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mated with Moonshine is now at an end! I hope you all enjoyed it!
> 
> It would really mean a lot to me if you could leave a comment! Even a small one or even a heart! ♥ It would make my day to see some silent readers come out of hiding!
> 
> If you want to comment anonymously, you have the option to comment as a guest! Or if you would like to comment privately, you can send me a DM on Twitter (link above)! Please don't be shy! Tell me what this chapter made you feel or what your favourite scene was from the story! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> After all the hard work I have put into this fic, even spending a good 2 hours trying to get the ending paragraph up to my standards, I would really love to hear your thoughts!
> 
> Don’t forget to upvote/leave kudos as well if you enjoyed it! I have also been checking to see if anyone has mentioned this fic on Twitter as well and I love seeing your reactions there too!
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has subscribed, commented, left kudos/upvoted and recommended it on Twitter/Tumblr! It really means a lot to me!
> 
>  
> 
> For now, I have to leave this AU alone and start work on an important fest fic but I think I will definitely come back to it in the future! Or I hope so at least. We all need some chanbaek pups right? TT It has to happen! Please stay tuned for any bonus scenes I write! I may also take requests as well, if I think your idea fits into the story and the characters!
> 
> For now, I will leave you with my rules that I created before I started to plan the fic. I hope these are old news to you now, as I included them in the narrative as best as I could! Most of them anyway! Some weren’t really applicable to the storyline! Yet (¬‿¬)
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading! Writing this has been a lovely experience, even if it didn’t turn out to be quite as calm or simple (or short) as I had anticipated! I can now cap this fic off at 49k, almost 20k over my original estimation!
> 
> ~Amy(ᵔᴥᵔ)
> 
>  
> 
> My Rules:
> 
> 1\. There are no betas in this au. Only alphas and omegas are present in the pack.
> 
> 2\. There are no destined mates or soulmates. Instead, when an omega comes of age (at 18), their ancestors choose the best suited alpha in their pack for them.
> 
> 3\. Their ancestors are real spiritual beings that watch over them and communicate with them through the moon.
> 
> 4\. Alphas are not allowed to talk to unmated omegas. This is to prevent an omega being a victim of things like assault and an unwanted bond. The alpha can court the omega by having mated omegas deliver gifts to them, and if the omega is accepting of their proposal, they will begin to indirectly do tasks for the alpha, such as washing their clothes and cooking them food.
> 
> 5\. The wolves do not have an individual scent. Rank is determined by wolf size – omegas have smaller wolf forms than alphas. Omegas are the only ones to have scents, and this only happens during their heat so that their alpha and themselves are aware.
> 
> 6\. Heat cycles begin when an omega becomes of age, and they last between 3-5 days every month. An unmated omega will have a very painful experience during heat, as it is a way for their body to call out to an alpha and seek a partner. An omega will often experience severe burning sensations and frequent orgasms in order to keep their scent strong to reel in an alpha. Mated omegas, however, have painless heats, more like the ovulation in humans.
> 
> 7\. The characters in this fic are not werewolves, as they can choose when they want to transition and do not have to change on the full moon. They are just shapeshifters.
> 
> 8\. Wolves can only mate once.
> 
> 9\. Male pregnancy exists in this universe. This means that male omegas are self-lubricating, and for the sake of realism – although omegas give birth in their wolf form – they dilate. This means that no fingering/preparation is needed, and also no lubricant. Pregnancy lasts for approximately two months.

**Author's Note:**

> **Please note that I do not want constructive criticism. Please do not share negative opinions or thoughts about this story in the comments, in bookmarks or on Twitter. Thank you :)**


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